Skyrocketing inflation: Russia now charging NASA $70 million per seat to fly US astronauts
fox ^ | 4/30/13 | ap
Posted on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 9:31:11 PM by Nachum
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA is paying $424 million more to Russia to get U.S. astronauts into space, and the agency's leader is blaming Congress for the extra expense.
NASA announced its latest contract with the Russian Space Agency on Tuesday. The $424 million represents flights to and from the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, as well as training, for six astronauts in 2016 and the first half of 2017.
That's $70.6 million per seat -- well above the previous price tag of about $65 million.
Russia currently provides the only means of getting people to and from the space station, and its ticket prices have soared with each new contract.
Several U.S. companies are working on rockets and spacecraft to launch Americans from U.S. soil. But that's still a few years away. The ability to launch crews into orbit from America ended with NASA's shuttle program in 2011. Even before the shuttles retired, the U.S. had been relying on Russia to transport long-term residents to the space station.
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