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U.S. to rely on Russia for manned spaceflight

by SOLARLIFE | October 6, 2008 at 09:58 am | 30 views | 4 comments | 2 recommendations

Space shuttle obsolete, American atronauts fly from Russia to ISS; no war in sight.

STAR CITY, Russia: This place was once no place, a secret military base northeast of Moscow that did not show up on maps. The Soviet Union trained its astronauts here to fight on the highest battlefield of the Cold War: space.

Yet these days, Star City is the place for America's hard-won orbital partnership with Russia, where astronauts train to fly aboard Soyuz spacecraft. And in two years, according to the Bush administration's plans, Star City will be the only place for sending astronauts from any nation to the International Space Station.

The gap is coming: Between 2010, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shuts down the space shuttle program, and 2015, when the next generation of U.S. spacecraft is scheduled to arrive, NASA expects to have no human flight capacity and will depend on Russia to get to the $100 billion station, buying seats on Soyuz craft as space tourists do.

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Fairbanks

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:44 on October 6th, 2008

Eisenhower knew about it. He also let Russia launch the first space satellite so the US could then send spy satellites up to map this facility and Russia couldn't claim anything because Sputnik was already spying from orbit.

SOLARLIFE

at 13:18 on October 6th, 2008

Thanks Fairbanks, "Eisenhower, Sputnik, ISS". In space we are all interdependant, sometimes hard for politicians. The Astonauts or Kosmonauts are international and will cooperate. The ISS is only to reach with russian soyus for some time, everybody knew it before.

Fairbanks

at 14:34 on October 6th, 2008

India is already participating in international space activities. China is also, but to a very minor degree. China is planning its own space station, which is an expensive waste of their resources since they could be participating in the ISS right now if they chose to do so.