[FPSPACE] Financial Crisis Threatens Space Station

[Jens Kieffer-Olsen]

 Russian daily Kommersant writes:

 
http://www.kommersant.com/p-13438/space_exploration_technology_financial_cri
sis/

 The world financial crisis is threatening International Space
 Station research programs. Specialists say that, unless there
 is a change in conditions, construction of the Soyuz spacecraft
 may be stopped for lack of funds. Vitaly Lapota, president and
 chief designer of Energy Corp., expressed his concerns on radio
 station Mayak, saying that "Two-thirds of the funds needed for
 the creation of the Soyuz in the budget were planned from credit
 resources that we were supposed to receive from banks," he said.
 
 "If they do not give us either advances or credit in the next
 two or three weeks, as we foresaw in the federal program, we
 will probably be unable to be responsible for the preparation
 of the Soyuz," Lapota said. The corporation stated that the
 government promised at the beginning of the month to provide
 it easy credit. "But it is already the end of the month and
 we haven't received the credit," Lapota noted. 

 Representatives of the Russian Space Agency immediately dismissed
 Lapota's concerns. Agency head Anatoly Perminov stated that the
 space station program is equipped with Soyuz craft for the next
 year. "Crews are also being trained and we don't expect to change
 our plans," Perminov said. The Soyuz will be the only link between
 the space station and Earth after flights by the U.S. space
 shuttle cease in 2011.

--
Jens Kieffer-Olsen
Slagelse, Denmark