A Ride On Mir Costs $20 Million
"Russia Set To Launch Perhaps Last Crew To Mir"
By Adam Tanner -- Friday February 19 3:57 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is preparing for the launch Saturday of
what could be the last crew on the Mir space station and, in a
sign times are tough, two of its three members are fare-paying
foreigners -- a Frenchman and a Slovak.
Ironically, Saturday is also the 13th anniversary of the launch
of the first module of the Mir station but celebrations are
likely to be muted. Russian space officials are at present
engaged in a desperate search for private funds to keep the
complex in orbit past August when the new crew returns to earth.
Russian commander Viktor Afanasyev, Frenchman Jean-Pierre
Haignere and Slovak Ivan Bella are due to take off from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0418 GMT Saturday.
By sending up two foreigners with the commander, Russia has in
effect sold off the place on the cramped three-seat Soyuz capsule
usually reserved for the Russian flight engineer, the top
technical specialist on board.
As a result, Sergei Avdeyev, who has already spent six months in
orbit, will stay for another half a year and return in August
with Afanasiyev and Haignere. Even after spending 359 days in
space, he will fall short of the record by two and a half months.
Air Force pilot Afanasyev, 50, is returning to the Mir station
for the third time, and is due to spend six months on board with
Haignere, who visited Mir for three weeks in 1993.
Haignere, like Afanasyev an air force colonel and also 50, plans
two space walks during his mission to install and remove
scientific experiments from the exterior.
Bella returns after eight days with outgoing commander Gennady
Padalka.
After a near-fatal collision with a cargo craft in 1997, Mir has
enjoyed a relatively trouble-free period, although like an older
Russian car, it needs constant small repairs.
The Russian Space Agency says it has government funding to keep
it flying until August. After that it is up to the Energiya
rocket corporation which owns Mir to find private sponsors.
So far they have failed to secure any private financing, Russian
Space Agency director Yuri Koptev said this week.
The foreign cosmonauts blasting off for Mir are playing an
important role in subsidizing the $200 million to $250 million a
year it needs to keep the station in orbit.
Slovakia says it is writing off about $20 million of Soviet- era
debt Moscow owes in exchange for Bella's flight, and France is
paying $20.6 million, according to the European Space Agency.
Pierre Paul Baskevitch, science counselor at the French Embassy
in Moscow, said France ended up getting a bargain because Russia
extended Haignere's flight from three to six months without
asking for more money.
''France said 'why not, if it is the same price','' Baskevitch
said. ''Of course it's a good deal.''
Russia's intention to keep Mir aloft beyond an original
retirement date of June has irritated the United States, which
has pressed Moscow to focus its meager resources on an
International Space Station in the early stages of construction.
The new station is more than a year behind schedule because of
Russian delays. ''I have to say above all that we are letting our
partners down a little,'' Koptev said earlier this week.
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