by Playfuls Staff |
7th January 2006
Have you seen the SF movie “A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”? Well, it seems that so did the American astronauts, who liked it so much that they’ve decided to hitchhike a ride to the ISS via a Soyuz shuttle. However, they'll have to pay quite a hefty fee: $21.8 million per passenger.[more]
Thus, according to NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews, the U.S. space agency and its Russian counterpart concluded a $43.8 million deal just before New Year’s Day that includes Soyuz transportation to and from the space station for NASA’s newly named Expedition 13 crew member, Jeff Williams, and a ride home for astronaut Bill McArthur, who has been living onboard the station since October.
Veteran cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, with Russia’s Federal Space Agency, will command the space station’s Expedition 13 mission while Williams will be serving as both flight engineer and NASA science officer.
Also launching toward the station with the Expedition 13 crew will be Brazilian Air Force Lt. Col. Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s first astronaut slated to fly in space. Pontes is expected to spend about one week performing experiments aboard the station before returning to Earth with its current crew.
Under the deal, Russia also will provide what Mathews described as “a small amount” of cargo space aboard a Progress resupply ship slated to launch to the station later this year and initial Soyuz training for NASA’s Expedition 14 crew member. That astronaut will head to the station this autumn aboard a Soyuz if the space shuttle is not back in service by then.
Russian Soyuz spacecraft have proven vital for transporting astronaut crews to and from the space station. The dependable vehicles were the only spacecraft to ferry astronauts into Earth orbit during the two and a half years NASA spent recovering from the 2003 Columbia accident. NASA's Discovery shuttle visited the station in July-August 2005 during the STS-114 mission, which marked the U.S. space agency's first post-Columbia spaceflight.
Mathews described the new agreement as a short term extension of an existing contract NASA signed with the Russian space agency before the Iran Nonproliferation Act became law in 2000. That act barred NASA from paying Russia for any space station-related goods and services as long as Russia continues to help Iran acquire missiles and other advanced weaponry.
The law was amended by the U.S. Congress at the request of the White House in late 2005, clearing the way for NASA buy Soyuz and Progress services from Russia until 2011, when the temporary relief would expire.
