On top of that, we pay $3 billion to $4 billion a year to operate the station. roughly $90 billion in construction and transportation over the 19 years it’s been operating. Yet even with the Russian assist, the “$8 billion” space station has wound up costing the U.S. support as a way to keep Russian scientists gainfully employed (rather than, say, building bombs for the Taliban) while rescuing both nations from space station projects that had become embarrassingly unaffordable. and Russia signed an agreement to work together on a new International Space Station. 20, 1998, the ISS has logged 110,000 laps around Earth, covering more than 2.5 billion miles while hosting more than half of the 553 astronauts who have ever left our planet. Since the launch of the station’s first component on Nov. In the original plan, the ISS wasn’t supposed to end like this - because it was supposed to be a charred heap lying on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean by now. But a look back at the station’s long, messy history offers a different perspective. Kelly’s lament echoed loud across the internet. “Cutting funding for the station,” Kelly said in an impassioned editorial, “would be a step backward for the space agency and certainly not in the best interest of the country.” Yet for much of the public - as well as to ardent space proponents, including former astronaut Mark Kelly - humanity’s only permanent outpost in space is an institution that needs to be protected. to sell its share of the ISS by 2025, treating the orbiting lab like some distressed piece of real estate in need of a buyer. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued a statement saying the agency was “committed to the safe operation” of the space station through 2030 and continues “to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit.The proposal calls for the U.S. NASA officials said they had yet to hear directly from their Russian counterparts on the matter. I’m sorry that our joint space projects that are important for the entire humankind are getting a political tinge. “Such projects should stay away from politics. “The International Space Station has enriched science with knowledge about the Earth and about the universe and brought us all together,” Borisov said.
“There are no political aspects here, and I believe there shouldn’t be any,” he said. lifted its sanctions against Russian space industries.īorisov insisted his agency’s decision wasn’t related to politics. The Russian announcement fueled speculation it was part of Moscow’s maneuvering to win relief from Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.īorisov’s predecessor as Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, said last month that Moscow could take part in negotiations about a possible extension of the station’s operations only if the U.S. The International Space Station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of cooperation between Russia and the West amid the tensions over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine. Russia has started design work on the new station, and space officials haven’t said when it could be launched. “The termination of work on the International Space Station and the start of work on the Russian station undoubtedly should be synchronized,” Borisov said, adding that the Russian pullout could take up to two years.
He said Russia won’t pull out of the International Space Station until it puts its own space outpost into operation.