Over at the New York Times, John Schwartz has a new installment in a series of pieces about current cooperation between Russia and America in space exploration:
Star City has become an important second home for Americans working with their Russian counterparts, and it is about to become more important still. During the five-year gap after NASA shuts down the space shuttle program in 2010 and the next generation of spacecraft makes its debut by 2015, Russia will have the only ride for humans to the station.
The gap, which was planned by the Bush administration to create the next generation of American spacecraft without significantly increasing NASA's budget, is controversial. But it is also all but inevitable, because much of the work to shut down the shuttles is under way, and the path to the new Constellation craft would be hard to compress even with additional financing.
Those who work side by side with their Russian counterparts say that strong relationships and mutual respect have resulted from the many years of collaboration. And they say that whatever the broader geopolitical concerns about relying on Russia for space transportation during the five years when the United States cannot get to the space station on its own rockets, they believe that the multinational partnership that built the station will hold.
For U.S. Astronauts, a Russian Second Home. See these related pieces in the series: One Way Up: U.S. Space Plan Relies on Russia, and Russia Leads Way in Space Tourism With Paid Trips Into Orbit.
Image: James Hill for The New York Times. "Cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov and astronaut Mike Fincke took part in a simulation exercise at a training center in Star City."
