NEWS
By Douglas Birch and Douglas Birch,SUN FOREIGN STAFF | July 30, 2005
MOSCOW - At a time when American manned missions have been suspended because of design flaws in the space shuttle, Russian authorities want to spin past the moon with a humble vehicle now serving as NASA's space taxi. Not only are Russian officials planning their nation's first lunar fly-by, according to Russian media reports, but they hope to make the mission at least partly self-financing by selling a seat aboard the venerable Soyuz spacecraft for $100 million. Where the shuttle is like a winged, spacious space SUV, Russia's Soyuz is an insect-like three-seater compact based on a 1960s design.
NEWS
By David Holley and David Holley,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | April 4, 2003
MOSCOW - Fearing that the international space station might have to be left in orbit without a crew, the Russian government yesterday accelerated funding to build space vehicles. Yuri Koptev, director of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, told reporters that the Russian Cabinet has approved the early release of $38 million that was budgeted for the second half of the year. The government also tentatively promised to increase the agency's budget to $240 million next year from $130 million this year, he said.
NEWS
By Douglas Birch and Douglas Birch,SUN FOREIGN STAFF | February 5, 2003
MOSCOW -- The technicians and cosmonauts working in Russia's once-glorious space program were laboring in obscurity a week ago, ignored by the world they had once astonished. Today, the fate of the $100 billion International Space Station, and the three crew members aboard, depends on those same scientists and engineers, working to figure out how to keep the station in orbit and the crew alive during the months to come. "Every section of our organization, every department knows what should be done in an emergency such as this," said Aleksandr Aleksandrov, chief of flight testing services for Energia, the government-controlled company that runs Russia's manned space programs.
NEWS
By Douglas Birch and Douglas Birch,SUN FOREIGN STAFF | February 3, 2003
MOSCOW - Two Americans and a Russian aboard the International Space Station may be stuck there two months longer than planned after Saturday's shuttle disaster, a Russian space official said yesterday. NASA astronauts Kenneth D. Bowersox and Donald R. Pettit, along with Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, flew to the station in November and were scheduled to return next month. But Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for Rosaviakosmos, the Russian space agency, said now the three may have to stay in orbit until May. "The final decision will be taken after specialists calculate exactly how much time stocks of food, oxygen and fuel will last," Gorbunov told the Itar-Tass news agency yesterday.
FEATURES
By Tamara Lytle and Tamara Lytle,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | September 4, 2002
As of yesterday, pop star Lance Bass was a man without a mission. Fed up Russian space officials said Bass and the consortium backing his flight to the International Space Station hadn't paid up, so he can no longer train in Star City, Russia, for the Oct. 27 mission. Hollywood handlers for Bass, a singer with the boy band 'N Sync, said they still were negotiating and hadn't given up making him the world's youngest person in space. Television producer David Krieff of Destiny Productions had landed commitments from sponsors such as Radio Shack and had planned a television show about the trip.
NEWS
By Will Englund and Will Englund,SUN FOREIGN STAFF | March 24, 2001
MOSCOW - That was some symbol that went streaking through the sky over Fiji yesterday, breaking up into pieces and sizzling into the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean. The Mir space station went up as a symbol, and it came down as a symbol. In between it came to stand for perseverance, if nothing more. Perseverance by an intrepid series of cosmonauts and ground crews in the face of fire, collision, leaking air, collapsing finances, cultural conflict and personality clash. To the very end, there were Russians who wanted to keep Mir going as a manifestation of Russian prowess.