Putin: Russia will keep space station on track
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) -- President Vladimir Putin gave cosmonauts his guarantee on Saturday that Russia would provide rockets and funds to keep the International Space Station afloat as long as U.S. shuttles remain grounded.
Since the February Columbia disaster, in which seven astronauts died, U.S. space agency NASA has put a freeze on shuttle flights, leaving the ISS dependent on Russian craft to carry food, fuel and crews into space.
Russian space officials have said repeatedly they cannot carry the burden of the $95 billion station without U.S. cash, warning Washington and Moscow that they could be forced to mothball the station altogether.
Washington has balked at requests for funds over foreign policy hitches and a row over Moscow's launch obligations.
But Putin, in an informal chat with the ISS's crew to mark Cosmonauts' Day, said Russia would not shrink from its duties.
"I understand the responsibility that lies on Russia's shoulders in this situation," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Putin as saying. "Today, as shuttle flights are temporarily grounded, it is important to keep the ISS in working order."
"The Russian government has already taken the decision to concentrate necessary resources to build additional craft to be sent into orbit. If it comes to it, we will look at the question of Russia taking on further work in the ISS," he told the two U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonaut aboard the station.
Russia celebrates Cosmonauts' Day to mark the first manned space shot. Yuri Gagarin blasted off on April 12, 1961.
Putin, speaking in a live link-up to the station at the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy in Russia's second city, praised the crew for their work after the Columbia crash.
"You were the ones faced with guaranteeing the uninterrupted work of the station in the dramatic week following the Columbia tragedy," he said in televised remarks. "You dealt with this task splendidly, despite physical and psychological exhaustion."
The ISS is currently manned by U.S. station commander Ken Bowersox, science officer Donald Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin. They were due to return to earth aboard the Atlantis shuttle last month, but will now be ferried down aboard a Russian Soyuz craft in early May.
Their veteran replacement crew -- Russian Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Edward Lu -- is due to blast off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on April 26.
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