[FPSPACE] MirCorp's money for ISS ?

[Chris Jones]

David Anderman <davida@cwo.com> writes:

  Let me see if I can explain Mr. Manber's logic:

  The 17 flights that Russia is committed to providing for ISS have, 
  unfortunately, no funding available, except for whatever monies flow from 
  the Russian government through Rosiakosmos to RSC Energia. 

Note: the Russian government has committed to these flights.  It seems that
they are not willing to put up the money to meet their commitments (or, they're 
willing to wait and see if someone else will put up the money in their stead).
If Energia doesn't want to fund these flights out of their own pockets (an
entirely reasonable position for them to take), the Russian government has to
either live up to or renege on their commitments.  Dan Goldin nearly had a fit
after Zvezda's launch when someone (sorry, I can't remember if it was an
Energia official or a Russian government official, or someone who is both) said 
that NASA should kick in more money since they had none.

                                                             On the other 
  hand, MirCorp provides cash to RSC Energia, part of which goes to paying 
  workers to build Soyuzes and Progresses. Without MirCorp, the amount of 
  cash that reaches those same workers would be close to zero. Clearly, 
  without MirCorp's money, sooner or later RSC Energia will no longer be able 
  to pay workers for the 17 "free" ISS missions.

Why should MirCorp be subsidizing the ISS flights at all?  Why should Energia
plow any excess funds (i.e. profits) from Mir operations back into ISS
operations?  Any desire to do so says to me that Energia and the Russian
government aren't as separate as they're made out to be.

It seems that both MirCorp and the Russian government are practicing something
very akin to blackmail:  give us money or ISS gets hurt.

I've been through IPOs, and MirCorp's statements and behavior don't give me any 
confidence that they're going to be successful in raising much money.  It's not 
impossible, since being filthy rich doesn't completely correlate with good
business sense, but anyone investing in this would probably be better advised
to put their money in lottery tickets.