USA Insists That Russia should Finance Extra Space Flights to International Space Station

The USA insists that the construction and launching of more spaceships to the international space station should be financed by Russia and promises to compensate for the expenses later, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency informed RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

In April the Russian Aviation and Space Agency intends to raise the issue in the Russian government, an Agency representative pointed out. Moreover, space experts will insist on transferring part of the federal money, given for the 2003 space programmes, from the second to the first half of the year.

"In this case we would have enough money to build a few new spaceships and could launch both a piloted and a cargo ship to the international space station in the first half of 2003," the Russian Aviation and Space Agency pointed out.

Problems in financing the international space station appeared, when the crash of the US Columbia shuttle on February 1st interrupted space flights of the tree remaining shuttles.