Back to the post: Two hypothesis: 1) That camera "sees" things that spy planes and satellites normally can't. So, they needed these data. 2) It was just a political act with the objective of remembering the USA government that they need a lot of Russian collaboration in the ISS. Shuttles will be grounded soon!

Cheers,
al.

When someone we're not allied with puts one above our country or one of our allies – it's spying or aggressive espionage, and can't be tolerated.

Don't you just love politics and the military?

@ jshobe
I'll second that

None of us here are likely close enough to the real conflicts to judge Russia's intent, although I think to a person we would acknowledge that there could be absolutely no military purpose to these photo's. Flexing its might by using the ISS for spying? Please. This is not a controversy, its alarmist. I think Russia has demonstrated an overwhelming unity with the world in space exploration. Yes, our governments may differ on how information is dissemniated, or how explanations are handled for mistakes, but at the level of actually getting science done, we're glad they're here. Our (US's) own natioanlistic stances on issues like this will do more to damage the cooperative spirit expected in operating the ISS, than would ever a few photos taken of glaciers from space.

We have to worry about serious problems inside and outside our borders. Often at the same time.

You probably didn't notice but the distribution of aid to victims of recent flooding was very efficient. It seems that most of the problems with FEMA that led to trouble in NO have been fixed. That, and the very inefficient local and LA state government were not involved this time. This was a very big non-story. Probably 'cause its not interesting when things work well.

As things continue to deteriorate with Russia, cooperation may be much more difficult on the ISS and other projects. While I do believe the NASA spokesperson, I do have a nagging thought that NASA might just sweep things like this under the rug for diplomatic purposes (that and I don't know why Russia would need pics from the ISS – they are flying planes over Georgia at will – unless to make a point).

I could go on for some time about the pros and cons of the two countries as I have direct experience of both but this is probably not a very good place to do it.

There is one constrain on NASA that causes it some of its problems: it's funded by the tax money which means that its actions are (at least in theory) controlled by the people through the politicians. This means government regulations and official US policies need to be met. Obviously, as long as a large portion of Americans is wary of Russia cooperation will be dogged by "issues" (as David R. pointed out above). Had anything like that happened on say Bigelow Aerospace's station it would be just between Bigelow Aerospace and whoever took the pictures. Now it is between the American, Canadian, European and Japanese taxpayers on one side and Russian government on the other. And that makes it way more complicated and sensitive. That was my point.

But I'm not into a discussion of international politics, quite frankly. I just wish people took a step back and thought this thing through before starting to throw rocks and creating an atmosphere that jeopardizes international cooperation in the ISS and other projects.

So I wouldn't follow that line of thinking if I were you. You shouldn't throw rocks at the neighours for doing exactly the same thing you do. They might throw them back at you.

The whole issue does however, in my opinion, raise some questions on cooperating with a country that has problems distinguishing between national security and everything else. One of the problems is that Russian society has not developed a "democratic mindset" where intelligence community does not (or should not) meddle in the life of the ordinary civil society.