There is an anecdote that the Russians love to tell because it is both self-deprecating and a backhanded compliment to their former-rivals-then-partners-now-patrons in the US. It goes something like this: Since pens don’t work in the zero-g conditions of space, NASA spent years developing a 0G pen. When the American scientists proudly revealed their million-dollar ‘space-age’ pen, the Russians were impressed. The American scientists inquired whether the Russian had a pen that worked in space. The Russians collectively shrugged their shoulders. “No,” they admitted. “Our cosmonauts use pencils.”
Today, with the grounding of the Space Shuttles, which American engineers still proudly declare as ‘the most complicated machine ever built my man’, the relatively dumb Russian rockets are left with the job of supplying the International Space Station (another hyper-complicated machine of dubious value). And, with the Shuttles out of commission, the only way down from the ISS is a Russian Soyuz landing pod (think of C3PO and R2D2 in the opening scenes of the 1977 Star Wars film).
From yesterday's Christian Science Monitor
"The Russian Space Agency's budget, $265 million last year, is dwarfed by
NASA's $15.5 billion annual allocation."
…The shuttle catastrophe follows a string of accidents with Europe's Ariane rockets, the only other space program potentially capable of resupplying the ISS. In December, an unmanned Ariane-5 lifter, with two satellites, exploded on its launchpad in a $500-million major setback for Europe's space aspirations."