Posted: Fri, Apr 2, 2004, 6:58 PM ET (2358 GMT)
European Space Agency officials are discussing with their Russian counterparts the possibility of having a European astronaut stay on the International Space Station for an extended period, a top ESA official said Friday. Joerg Feustel-Buechl, ESA's outgoing head of manned spaceflight activities, told reporters in Moscow that ESA would like to send two astronauts to the station on Soyuz taxi flights in April and October 2005. While the April trip would be a short-term mission, he said the October mission could be the first long-duration mission for a European on ISS. Those plans could be complications to NASA and commercial ISS plans. Gregory Olsen, the space tourist announced earlier this week, is also scheduled to fly on the April 2005 taxi mission. Feustel-Buechl said that Olsen "may become a certain problem for us." That could be solved, he noted, if NASA agreed to have the Expedition 10 crew stay on the station for a full year, as recently discussed. In addition, the station can only support two people while the shuttle is out of service; if the shuttle has not returned to flight by next October either the US or Russia would have to give up their place on the ISS to make room for an ESA long-term astronaut.

Related Links:

•  AFP article
•  RIA Novosti article