With numerous breakdowns in Russia's space program over the past six months, NASA needs to stop spouting diplomatically polite lines such as "We have full confidence in our partners" and start (quietly) planning for a couple of worst-case scenarios on board the International Space Station (ISS).   Fortunately, we (the United States) have the technology in hand, but we need to have the will to start looking at potential problems now, rather than having to wing it on the fly a la Apollo 13.

Long-time Russian space expert and ex-NASA engineer James Oberg had suggested there was more going on with the Russian space program than most people were aware when the unmanned Progress 44 cargo resupply mission to the space station ended up splattering across the countryside back in August 2011. At the time, I tuned out his comments, thinking he was just being a wee bit paranoid.

However, additional rocket launch failures by Russia, including another Soyuz loss and the stranding of Phobos-Grunt in earth orbit, along with the casual stroll by "Urban Explorers" into a Moscow plant that tests Russian rocket engines have swayed me into the "We have a problem" category. But how big of a problem?

If it's a matter of simply getting cargo to the space station, NASA appears to be on the right curve.   The last shuttle mission -- STS-135 – stockpiled enough supplies at ISS for about a year of operation until U.S. commercial providers could start operation in 2012. If the Russian's were to drop another unmanned Progress resupply mission across Siberia instead of into orbit, the European ATV and the Japanese HTV are already available to lift supplies.

In February, SpaceX (News - Alert) will try to hit a home run in demonstrating its first full-up unmanned Dragon cargo supply mission to ISS. Following shortly thereafter, Orbital Science Corporation will demo its Antares/Cygnus system for space station supply.   If both firms are successful, the U.S. will have two ways to deliver cargo to the space station.

However, if a crew-carrying Russian Soyuz docked to the space station were to be disabled and unable to safely take people back to earth, there's no other officially-approved way to depart.

Enter the cargo Dragon. The capsule is designed to provide a pressurized downmass capability for the space station of up to 3,000 kilograms (6614 pounds). A Dragon capsule successfully flew twice around the earth, re-entered, and splashed down off the coast of California. Future missions will return experiments and equipment from ISS back to earth.

In theory, a cargo Dragon could provide an escape capability for one or more people, with the two open questions being life support – how many people can you stuff into it for x-number of hours? – and a way to secure bodies for the return to earth, since a cargo-carrying vehicle isn't currently configured with seats.

SpaceX is currently working on a manned "Dragon Rider" capsule as part of NASA's commercial crew program to provide U.S.-based flights to the space station, with the two main modifications between it and the unmanned version being more/robust life support to sustain crew up and down and a launch escape system. However, if you have a cargo Dragon, you don't need a launch escape system since there aren't people on board. 

At this point, it becomes an exercise as to how fast you can put crew seats into a cargo Dragon, some basic life support supplies, and launch it on a Falcon 9. SpaceX has two cargo Dragon flights scheduled to ISS every year through 2015, so there's a steady flow of Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets going to Florida. 

Finally, SpaceX wants to refine the amount of time it takes to launch a Falcon 9 from fuelling and rollout to lighting the engines from a current 6 hours to about one.   If all the hardware was kicking around in Florida, SpaceX might be able to get a Dragon off the pad and up to the space station in a week or less. But both NASA and SpaceX need to start having some conversations -- either formally, or informally -- on how to accomplish that task should the need arise.

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