From Novosti Kosmonavtiki news №703. Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov criticizes the space agency’s emphasis on flying space tourists who take the seats of professional cosmonauts.
5/5/2008/20:11 – Space tourism is a problem for professional astronauts, pilot astronaut Pavel Vinogradov believes
Space tourism is a great challenge for professional astronauts. This opinion was expressed in an interview with a correspondent from ITAR-TASS news agency during a recent leadership meeting of NPO Energomash with the cosmonaut deputy head of Flight Space Center, RSC Energiya pilot-cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.
“Space tourism,” he said, “for we professionals to date, unfortunately, is a big problem. It does not solve any of our financial problems and undermines the foundations of our manned space program because we are forced to remove young cosmonauts and put in their place tourists. They to some extent, interfere with normal operations.”
According to him, “when the ISS crews are complete, when there are no issues – let the ‘tourists ’ fly. ” “Personally, I,” said Vinogradov “have no complaints about any of the tourists, they are all very good people, professionals of the highest rank in their fields. But they are not professional cosmonauts. And today, unfortunately, we can find a place for them but not professionals.”
Speaking of the scientific programme of the International Space Station, the pilot-astronaut, in particular, noted that “the ISS, in terms of its solvable scientific problems, unfortunately does not so far justify itself. Today we obtain results from the Station that are a percentage of what we received at the Station Mir,” he explained. “Of course, the reliability of ISS is much higher than that of Mir and even more so with the Salyuts, but we are constantly behind with the scientific programs.”
“Today a crew of three people can do some science and can fully occupied on the Station,” added Vinogradov, “but when a crew of 6 people lives on the Station, there will arise the issue of how to occupy them. Research is so constructed that we must always anticipate the possibilities of the delivery of scientific experiments on board, and we always lag behind.” According to the cosmonaut, “today we to a larger degree fly for this reason, or to transport our American and other partners to the ISS.”
“Soyuz debate considers removing US presence from the ISS”, NASASpaceflight.com, 16/5. NASA officials are considering bringing the U.S. ISS crewman, Garrett Reisman, down on the next Shuttle flight (STS-124 Discovery), because of the uncertainty around the cause of Soyuz TMA-11’s off-nominal ballistic landing. In that case, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko would have to entrust themselves to the TMA-12 and hope it works OK!
