Time running out for space station deal

Between a rocket and a hard place
Far more expensive than just the training at Star City, the actual price of an entire Soyuz mission — perhaps as high as $60 million — has been funded so far entirely by the Russian side. But as of next year, bringing astronauts to the space station and providing an escape capsule for all of them contractually becomes NASA's responsibility.

Installment payments must begin soon so that subcontractors can be paid in advance for components needed for the assembly of the spacecraft and its booster rocket.

Finding the money at all amid tight budget times is one thing, but NASA is also struggling with a far thornier policy problem: U.S. law forbids NASA from paying the Russians any real money, except under specific conditions that have not been met.

Without some sort of payment, the Russians would deny NASA access to future Soyuz missions, including the use of docked Soyuz capsules in emergencies, and the international space station could no longer host long-term crews. This puts NASA over a space barrel.

When the original partnership agreements were signed for the international space station in the late 1990s, various goods and services were allocated to the different partners. The Russians agreed to provide a steady stream of unmanned resupply ships — the Progress space freighters — and also an initial sequence of twice-yearly Soyuz missions to keep the station equipped with a bail-out vehicle for its initial three-person crew.

NASA, in turn, promised to develop and deploy a seven-person bail-out capsule to provide safe emergency evacuation for an expanded crew. The capsule was to be operational by 2005, after which the Russian obligation to provide Soyuz vehicles would lapse. They would still fly such missions, but all seats would be allocated on a strictly cash-and-carry basis.

NASA A Russian Soyuz transport craft is shown docked with the international space station in a 2002 photo. After the next two Soyuz flights, NASA is contractually bound to pay for flying astronauts to the station, and that poses a dilemma.

The last such "free" Soyuz will be launched next September. When it lands in April 2006, all seats on subsequent Soyuzes — whether merely up-down visits or for use in emergency descents — must be paid for in advance.

Later in the decade, when the crew size of the station increases from three to six people, a second three-seat Soyuz must remain permanently docked, so that all six crew members can be evacuated in any emergency. The Russians can increase their flight rate from two vehicles to four vehicles per year, but they need several years’ advanced warning to ramp up their production facilities, and that in turn requires increased funding.

It was this second Soyuz that Perminov referred to this week, when he indicated that Russia felt NASA was responsible for paying for it. Indeed, NASA had originally promised to provide exactly such a service, but canceled development of the U.S. spacecraft that would have provided it. From the Russian point of view, they can meet their obligations by substituting commercially acquired Russian vehicles instead.

Who’s extorting whom?
In the late 1990s, there appeared to be a torrent of technology transfer from the Russian missile industry to "rogue states," particularly Iran. Unemployed rocket scientists could be seen at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport with tickets to Tehran, where they would spend several months helping out with particular engineering roadblocks. Their pay rates, as reported by Russian journalist Yevgeniya Albats, were quite low — testifying to the total failure of interdiction efforts.

In an attempt to squeeze the Russian government into enforcing existing nonproliferation agreements, Congress and President Clinton put the Iran Non-Proliferation Act, or INA, into effect in 2000. It basically forbade NASA for sending any money to the Russian Space Agency until the White House certified that all leakage had stopped.

No such certification has yet been made, and based on reports of continued free-lance "consultations," no near-term certification is expected.

MORE FROM SPACE

Space Section Front

Spaceship goes on show   The making of SpaceShipTwo Britain pulls the plug on its UFO hotline Cosmic Log: Watch the skies Mystery looms over possible brown dwarf star Life of family of stars revealed in new photo NASA still puzzled about parachutes in rocket test Search for aliens costs school employee his job Controversy flares over space-based power plan   Month in space: Powerful pictures Space Section Front   Add Space headlines to your news reader: