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Russian supply ship docks with space station
MOSCOW (CNN) -- An unmanned Russian supply ship docked with the international space station Tuesday, bringing stocks of food and fuel to two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut who had been scheduled to return to Earth aboard a space shuttle next month. The Progress M-47, launched Sunday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, docked with the station at 9:49 a.m. ET, NASA said. Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit, station commander and flight engineer respectively, and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin arrived in November and were to return to Earth in March aboard the shuttle Atlantis. But with all shuttle flights grounded until the cause of the Columbia tragedy is found, the astronauts living in space will have to make the most of nearly three tons of water, food, oxygen and fuel which arrived on the Russian cargo booster. The supplies could keep the astronauts going until the end of June, NASA officials said. "They committed themselves to stay up there as long as was needed to get the job done," said Bill Readdy, NASA's associate administrator of space flight. In the meantime, the United States, Russia and the 14 countries committed to building the $95 billion station wrestled with how to get the astronauts back and whether to continue sending humans to live there. Floating 250 miles above Earth, the structure has been saddled with billions in cost overruns and controversy from the start. "It's sort of a house of cards in the sense that all of the hopes for human space flight have been pinned on that station," space author Andrew Chaikin told CNN. "And if they can't complete it, it's an enormous investment whose potential will be unrealized." 'Lifeboat' docked to stationIf things ever got really bad, officials said, the astronauts could always come back aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket "lifeboat" attached to the station. A key concern, however, is the health of Budarin, 49, who experienced a cardiac abnormality shortly after taking off in November and missed a spacewalk last month. "The program is making every effort to ensure that the crew on orbit has all that they need to continually man the space station," said Bob Cabana, director of flight crew operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, who was one of the first humans aboard the station. "Right now, there's absolutely no concern for any of their consumables on board." Taking the leadIf they can round up necessary funds, some Russian officials see this as an opportunity for their beleaguered space program to take the lead from the United States.
Though the Columbia shuttle was not set up to dock at the station, five space shuttle flights were expected to deliver 40 tons of equipment to the orbiting human outpost this year. The "tragedy will have a big influence on the future of the international space station," cosmonaut Yuri Usachev told Russian TVS television. "Most likely, for a certain amount of time the emphasis will shift to Russian systems for delivery of cargo and crews." Yet the Russian rockets can carry only three people and about 2.5 tons of supplies, compared to seven-member crews and 25 tons or more of cargo that fit into the shuttle. The shuttle's three engines also make the trip in less time and at less cost than the Russian ships, which are not reusable. It takes about two years to build a Soyuz passenger capsule and somewhat less to build a Russian Progress cargo ship. Space tourism canceledComplicating matters even more, Russian officials canceled plans to send more crews or tourists into space while NASA conducts its investigation. Historically, U.S. shuttles have carried long-term crews to the station, while Soyuz craft have ferried visiting crews and emergency escape rockets. "We're losing a significant amount of money," said Russian space agency spokesman Sergey Gorbunov. "We're losing approximately several tens of millions of dollars, but at least the space tourist program is not closing down forever. It is being temporarily suspended until the time till the shuttle difficulties are over." The bigger question is whether the U.S. will remain committed to send people into space or let the partially built space station float in limbo, analysts say. The station drops 1.5 miles a week from its orbit and it needs the shuttle to periodically haul it into its original position in order to keep it in space. The space station doesn't need to be reboosted this calendar year, said NASA deputy associate administrator Michael C. Kostelnik. Making the case for robots
And there's no mandate that humans must leave Earth to adjust the station's orbit. Some scientists argue there's a bigger benefit in unmanned flights using robots because they're less expensive and less dangerous. "You can do a lot with robots," said space policy analyst Nick Fuhrman. "You can read the soil. You can understand the atmosphere of any planetary body." Others believe the space station is important for medical and technological research, and possibly as a first step to a lunar base -- even a manned mission to Mars. Advocates also see political and diplomatic payoffs -- building bridges with other countries involved in funding the station. In the end, experts say, the debate over the future of manned space flight will involve big science, big money, and some of humankind's biggest dreams. "I don't think we want to leave it unmanned because we're exploring," said NASA's Cabana. "We're doing science. We have a mission. We're up there to do what we set out to do. ... It just wouldn't be right to quit." CNN's Jeordan Legon and Charles Feldman contributed to this report.
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