…or pay more to the Russians. A rapid-fire Reuters dispatch on Lori’s talk this morning, from Irene Klotz, who’s sitting behind me.
[Afternoon update]
Alan Boyle (who’s sitting next to Irene): Pay the Americans now, or pay the Russians later.
10 thoughts on “Back Space Taxis”
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OK, something doesn’t add up here. Earlier in the article it states that it costs $50 million a seat to send astronauts to ISS on the Soyuz through 2016, with 4 flights a year that only comes to $200 million.
Then Lori Graver says it will cost $450 million if the U.S. buys one more year. Does that mean the Russians are raising their rate by 125%?
Maybe we are buying more than one seat per flight?
The $50M/seat figure is about what we’re paying Russia today.
In March of this year NASA signed a $753M contract with Russia for 12 seats to the ISS for 2014-2016, which equals $62.75M/seat, so you have to use that as the starting point for what the $450M Garver talked about means (about 7 seats).
So any reason for the increase of ISS astronauts from 4 per year to 7 in 2017? Are the Russians, Europeans downsizing the ISS commitment then?
We pay for six now, not four. The US is responsible for the transportation of the ESA, JAXA, and CSA astronauts.
“So any reason for the increase of ISS astronauts from 4 per year to 7 in 2017? ”
We don’t know the time period Garver was talking about for the $450M it would cost for using Soyuz, so I wouldn’t try divining headcount from that.
Rand did touch on a side effect of using 7-person commercial capsules, is that you can have temporary visitors like they had when Shuttles would visit. They can start doing that as soon as 7-person capsules are docked at the ISS and another is coming for crew rotation.
Ken Bowersox of SpaceX also said that they will only require one fully trained crew person and one lightly trained crew person for each flight, so the other people won’t have to go through months of training like current Soyuz riders do. That means you can have more flexibility on who you send – engineers to fix balky equipment, reporters, or even members of Congress. Lots more flexibility with 7-person vehicles.
Coastal Ron,
It would have been nice if someone had asked a follow-up question to see what the $450 million was based on. But I guess if it’s argument in favor of subsidizing New Space no one dare question it.
So any reason for the increase of ISS astronauts from 4 per year to 7 in 2017?
Because they can? And the more researchers, the more research?
Why are we sending astronauts to the ISS at all? Rather than pay now or pay later how about pay not at all?
That’s a separate discussion. Given that it is the current policy to maintain and utilize the ISS, Congress is being fiscally idiotic.