It's no secret that I've been critical of the Administration's policies regarding Russia and the space program. The reasons this relationship troubles many of my colleagues sometimes gets lost in the translation. So, let me lay out the concerns we've had since the White House invited Russia to join the program. First, we were concerned with the impact that bringing a partner in the midst of a radical economic and political restructuring would have on such a complex technical program as the International Space Station. Russia's transition from totalitarian communism to democratic capitalism is a phenomenal undertaking.
Instability goes hand and hand with that kind of transition.
We do not want that instability to threaten the program. So, on a bipartisan basis, Congress urged the President to ensure that Russia was not in the Station's critical path. Officials from NASA, the White House, and the State Department testified that if the Russians dropped out of the program, no redesign activity would be required. The President promised me in writing that the United States would have critical, in-line autonomous capabilities to build and operate the Space Station at every phase of construction. On the basis of those assurances, Congress went along with bringing Russia into the program.