Anarchy: The Final Frontier

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

AS RUSSIA STRUGGLES TO HOLD TOGETHER, ITS SPACE PROGRAM is falling apart. At the BAIKONUR COSMODROME in Kazakhstan -- the Russian equivalent of the Kennedy Space Center -- civilian workers have been looting equipment, crippling the facility's launch pad in the process. The Russian space program is also involved in a feud with the new Ukrainian state, which has its own space program. A Russian meteorological satellite was turned off in orbit, so Ukraine couldn't recover weather data from it. Some of the stolen Baikonur equipment has mysteriously resurfaced in Ukraine. Understandably, the disarray of Russia's once great space program has NASA officials worrying about scheduled joint U.S.-Russian manned spaceflights.