CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- NASA has suspended operations with Russia - except for the joint operation of the International Space Station - due to tensions over Ukraine, the U.S. space agency announced yesterday.
"Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and
territorial integrity, NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing
engagements with the Russian Federation," NASA said in a statement. "NASA and Roscosmos will,
however, continue to work together to maintain safe and continuous
operation of the International Space Station. NASA is laser focused on a
plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our
reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of
the Obama Administration’s for the past five years, and had our plan
been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight
launches – and the jobs they support – back to the United States next
year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we’re now
looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is
between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America
or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It’s that
simple.."
The U.S. pays Russia over $70 million per astronaut to be launched from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station.
