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Russia to Stop Giving Free Trips to US Astronauts

Russian Space Agency said on Tuesday it will stop giving free space trips to U.S. astronauts. The agency chief Anatoly Perminov quoted by Reiters said they “will put U.S. astronauts into orbit only on a commercial basis” from 2006.

Russia has been servicing the International Space Station alone for almost two years since the crash of the U.S. Columbia shuttle. The United States has often funded Russian cosmonauts’ trips to the station on its shuttles and since the tragedy Russia has done the same for U.S. astronauts.

A spokesman of the Russian agency quoted by Reuters said Perminov will go to the United States early next year with a proposal. It says, the United States would write off debts of man-hours that Russia owes for work carried out on the station in exchange for Russia launching its astronauts. NASA officials have not commented this information yet.

U.S. officials have said Shuttle flights could resume in May, an event Russia is keenly awaiting. “At the beginning of next year I will go to America to personally make sure that the preparation for the resumption of Shuttle flights is going according to plan,” Perminov said.