Energy

NASA Paid Putin Millions To Lift Another Crew Of Astronauts To Space Station

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Andrew Follett Energy and Science Reporter
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NASA paid Russian President Vladimir Putin tens of millions of dollars to send another crew of astronauts up to the International Space Station (ISS) Wednesday.

The crew of three astronauts includes American Shane Kimbrough and Russians Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko. They will arrive at the space station Friday. The astronauts will replace a six-man team which includes two astronauts from the U.S., one from Japan, and three from Russia.

Putin currently charges the U.S. $60 million per astronaut, and will raise the price to $81 million by 2018, according to a new report that NASA’s Office of Inspector General. Russia has repeatedly threatened to block American access to the $150 billion ISS in response to U.S. sanctions. The U.S. paid for 84 percent of the costs associated with building the ISS. The last space shuttle launched five years ago in July, but NASA still can’t put men into space without Russian cooperation due to President Barack Obama’s cuts to the agency’s exploration and spaceflight capability.

Relations between Russia and the U.S. have worsened dramatically in recent years due to the annexation of Crimea, the quasi-conflict with Ukraine and the fact that Russia has killed more civilians in Syria than Islamic State.

NASA plans to return to Earth’s orbit are entirely dependent on private companies, some of which are scheduled to launch by the end of next year. Astronauts installed adapters that allowed commercial spacecraft to dock with the ISS in August and give NASA less expensive options to resupply the station.

SpaceX has already successfully resupplied the ISS seven times. One SpaceX resupply mission in June of 2015 resulted in an explosion and a total loss of the spacecraft. The private company Orbital Sciences is also under contract with the space agency to resupply the ISS, but has also had failures.

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