Russia Hikes Price of Rocket Rides for U.S. Astronauts to $63 Million

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FOX News:

NASA, already committed to paying Russia millions of dollars to hitch rides into space, had some expensive news to announce Monday: Russia plan to start charging even more.

With the United States phasing out the shuttle program, the new way for U.S. astronauts to get to the International Space Station will be to catch a ride with the Russians, and NASA's existing contract for that transport priced each rocket ride at just under $56 million.

Now, Russia is hiking the price for each rocket ride to nearly $63 million in 2014. The contract extension with the Russian Space Agency totals $753 million, which covers trips for a dozen astronauts from 2014 through 2016.

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Sigh.

[Casino67]

What is the cost of keeping our program alive?

[Pepper]

Casino

 

Clearvision

 

Does not anyone see anything wrong with this picture besides a few conservatives?

 

 

 

And the two clowns running for office in 2008 said this:

 

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, the presidential candidates, denounced the gap and touted their commitment to the space program while on trips to Florida, where thousands of workers will lose their jobs when the shuttle program ends. And antagonism between the United States and Russia, over Georgia and other issues, is clouding the future of a 15-year partnership between the American and Russian space programs, precisely when NASA will be more reliant on Russia than ever before.

 

and

Even though the outlines of the gap have been known since soon after Griffin began running the agency in 2005, Commander Scott Kelly of the U.S. Navy, an astronaut who has made two trips to orbit, warned in April that the prospect of a United States that cannot send humans into space on its own rockets will come as a shock.

"A large part of the American public is going to be surprised," he predicted, and people will ask in outrage, "Who let that happen?"

 

 

Fast forward to 2010. The black is white, forget the man behind the curtain Obama White House today

 

"It's a misnomer to say that we're not a leader in space," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator. "We still are leading in space; we're doing it a different way."

 

"When the shuttle goes away, we're not gonna be the lead on transportation, but we're the lead across the board on many other things," Joel Montablano, NASA's Russia manager, said. "Together we make it happen; no one country can do this."

 

Oh yeah. We're paying top dollar to fly tourist on a Russian shuttle.

 

 

One dissenting remark

 

"I think the United States by giving up the shuttle is making a serious mistake because technologically, it's the most advanced space vehicle in the world, and really there is no reason not to continue to fly it," former Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey said.