Russia loses monopoly on Space Station travel

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 31 May 2020 by Alex Teddy
On May 30 SpaceX ferried people to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX is a US company owned by Elon Musk. Until now Russia was the only country to transport people to the ISS. SpaceX's flight is the first ever crewed flight by a private space company. Roscosmos will not like this. Roscosmos publicly welcomed SpaceX's success saying it will benefit space exploration.The May 30 flight was the first trip of US astronauts since 2011 when the space shuttle program was suspended. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft has been used to transport crews since then. All astronauts of all nations have been trained at Star City, Russia and taught Russian. They take off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. This gave Russia massive leverage over space exploration. Roscosmos charged NASA USD 80 million for each person transported. If SpaceX transports all American astronauts then Roscosmos could lose USD 200 million a year. Roscosmos has a budget of USD 2 billion. SpaceX only charges USD 60 million per person. Roscosmos is talking about cutting its price 30%.SpaceX uses cheap engines and makes most of its own parts.Russia and the US could adopt a system whereby they transport equal number of each others' people for free. One NASA official proposed that. Russia's mastery of space is under threat from China. The space sector has suffered from corruption. The Vosctochny launchpad in Siberia has been way over budget because of it. Russian space technology has not moved on. There have been problems with spacecraft and satellites. SpaceX says it wants to get to Mars. Trump reanimated the National Space Council. The US taking space seriously is another challenge to Russia. Putin cares more about milita...

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