Fwd: Russia might go it alone if space station program ends

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 29, 2014 10:07:59 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Russia might go it alone if space station program ends

 

 

Russia Could Go It Alone After International Space Station Closes

MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian segment of the International Space Station could live on as a separate facility after the project's conclusion, the head of the company that oversees the country's participation said Tuesday.

"By the mid-2020s our American colleagues will have exhausted their technical resources and Russia will have a unique opportunity to use the segment, still to be completed, as an orbiting international port," RSC Energia's president Vitalii Lopota said at an annual space conference in Moscow.

Lopota said the long-delayed Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module would only be completed in 2018-2020.

Russian officials have in the past suggested their segment could be detached and operated independently of the ISS as the United States had previously considered leaving the project as early as 2016.

But earlier this month US President Barack Obama vowed to keep the American segment operational until 2024.

International Space Station

 

Lopota said the Russian segment could still be detached at that time, when its first modules will already be more than 20 years old, to serve as a transit point for international missions headed deeper into space.

The ISS, developed as a joint project between the US and Russia in the 1990s, has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years by astronauts from more than a dozen countries.

 

© 2014 RIA Novosti

 

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Official: Russia might go it alone if space station program ends

MOSCOW, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The Russian segment of the International Space Station could live on as a separate facility after the project's conclusion, a space program official says.

"By the mid-2020s our American colleagues will have exhausted their technical resources and Russia will have a unique opportunity to use the segment, still to be completed, as an orbiting international port," Ria Novosti reported RSC Energia's president Vitalii Lopota as saying at an annual space conference in Moscow.

RSC Energia oversees the country's participation in the ISS.

The long-delayed Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module would only be completed in 2018-2020, Lopota said, but Russian officials have in the past suggested their segment could be detached and operated independently of the ISS.

U.S. President Barack Obama has vowed to keep the American segment operational until 2024.

Initiated as a joint project between the United States and Russia in the 1990s, the space station has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years by astronauts from more than a dozen countries.

 

© 2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

 

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