Posted: Fri, Dec 3, 2004, 7:32 AM ET (1232 GMT)
NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) are near a barter agreement that would permit continued US access to Soyuz spacecraft for missions to the International Space Station. MSNBC reported late Thursday that NASA officials confirmed an earlier Russian media report that NASA is willing to forgive a debt of 3,000 crew man-hours in exchange for another year of free access to the station on Soyuz spacecraft. Russia built up that debt because of early American contributions to the station's assembly; Russian officials valued that debt at $60 million. Under the proposed agreement NASA would forgive that man-hour debt in exchange for Russia extending an existing agreement to provide Soyuz spacecraft free of charge for a year, through 2006. NASA and Roskosmos, along with the other ISS partners, have been struggling with how to provide crew transfer and escape spacecraft for the ISS, given the expiration of the current agreement, a lack of alternative spacecraft, and US law which prohibits NASA from purchasing Russian space hardware. Because the barter agreement does not involve any transfer of money, the deal would appear to be exempt from that law. The agreement will likely be a subject of discussions between the heads of NASA and Roskosmos later this month in the US.
