Moscow, Dec 11: Poor funding may soon reduce Russia's cosmonauts to mere cargo drivers for the growing International Space Station, as Russia's space programme languishes in neglect, the Russian space chief warned. According to Yuri Koptev, head of Russia's Aerospace Agency, construction of the Russian component on the ISS has been effectively frozen as the space industry, once a Soviet point of pride, had not received its due funding since 1989.
"Our NASA colleagues are terrified when their budget shrinks to 15 billion dollars a year. But Russia's space budget totals only 309 million," Koptev lamented bitterly at a round-table yesterday.

"Russia makes 21 launches a year. By comparison, India allocates 530 million dollars a year for space research and makes only one lunch annually," he added as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
For Russia's space industry, where the personnel's average age tops 60 and only 89 satellites orbit the earth where 180 used to trek, much is in the past, the space chief complained.



"Our significant achievements ended in the 1970s. Since then the country just took the beaten track and we have had no landmark breakthoughs," Koptev said.



The Russian space agency warned earlier that it could no longer afford to meet its commitments to help build and supply the ISS.


Bureau Report