Russia threatens to revise deal with U.S. on space station

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, MAY 4. Enraged by American demands of damage compensation for the flight of a space tourist to the International Space Station (ISS), Russia threatened to revise its agreement with the United States on the ISS.

``Russia is not the kind of country to be bossed about, specifically in space research,'' Mr. Yuri Semyonov, head of the Energiya Corporation which helped build the ISS, said in an interview to the Russian television.

He said the Russian side could rewrite its agreement with the U.S. on the exploitation of the multinational space station.

The NASA chief, Mr. Daniel Goldin, was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as telling a Congressional committee in Washington this week that the arrival of the U.S. businessman, Mr. Dennis Tito, to the ISS together with a Russian visiting crew on Monday had forced the three-person resident crew to stop their work to become ``babysitters'' for the space tourist.

``The current situation has put an incredible stress on the men and women of NASA,'' Mr. Goldin told Congressmen.

He said Russia would be asked to foot the bill for the lost research time, extra safety measures and other expenses forced on NASA.

However, Mr. Semyonov of Energiya Corporation dismissed NASA's claims as ``absolutely incompetent, to put it mildly''.

He said Mr. Tito was staying in the Russian segment of the space station and would only have to pass through the U.S. section once on his way to the capsule which would take him back to earth on Sunday.

NASA had all along objected to the flight of Mr. Tito, who paid about $20 million for a week-long stay aboard the ISS, but Russians said it was none of NASA's business who they fly in a Russian rocket to the Russian segment of the station.

Russian space officials said they would continue to fly rich tourists to the ISS to make up for budget underfunding of the project.

In a video press conference on Friday, his Russian crewmates denied the American was a nuisance.

The space tourist said the pace of work on the ISS had slowed down because of computer problems in the U.S. segment.

``The American sector is at least 100 metres from the place where we are now and where I spend most of my time, and there is absolutely no way that my presence can interfere with their work,'' Mr. Tito said.

A Russia media report described the row over the space tourist as ``the worst crisis in the eight-year history of the Russian- American cooperation in building the ISS''.

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Section  : International
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