Prior to the Columbia disaster, the International Space Station (ISS) partners had planned on a March launch of the three-person crew for Expedition 7 crew -- Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, flight engineer Alexander Kaleri and US astronaut Edward Lu.

With the shuttles grounded, however, it may be that neither Kaleri nor Malenchenko would fly, the Rosaviakosmos official said. "We are choosing from those cosmonauts, who are most experienced," said the official when asked what Russian cosmonaut or cosmonauts will fly to ISS as part of the next permanent crew.

Neither this official nor Alexander Botvinko, deputy director of Rosaviakosmos' manned space exploration department, would confirm a Feb.12 report by the Russian-language news service Interfax that it will be Gennady Padalka who will fly as part of a two-person crew to ISS.

In a Feb. 12 telephone interview Padalka said he was unaware of being considered as member of Expedition 7. "As far as I know it has not been even discussed as an option." Padalka said he remains part of a visiting crew that was supposed to go the station on a Soyuz mission in May.

Padalka also noted that the stay of the Expedition 6 crew might be prolonged into summer.

Now, without no shuttle flight available, Rosaviakosmos would like the next permanent crew to fly to the ISS aboard that same Soyuz-TMA spacecraft in May, according to the Rosaviakosmos official.

The Russian space agency had initially planned to use that Soyuz mission to launch a three-person visiting crew to the ISS in April for ten days. This visiting crew includes Padalka and astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA) Pedro Duque.

Rosaviakosmos has promised ESA that Duque will fly to the station, the official noted. "We need to honor our commitments," he said.

Rosaviakosmos spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said in a recent interview that Rosaviakosmos would lose up to $40 million this year if it has to abandon deals to sell one seat on each of the two Soyuz-TMA's that were designated to take visiting crews to the station for short duration stays.

One option could be that Duque would fly in May and one of the members of Expedition 6 will stay on at the station to allow the Spaniard to come back after completing his 10-day stint. Expedition 6 members have already vowed to stay on at ISS if necessary. "We told our management that if they need us to stay a year, that's fine. They've got blanket approval for that. If they want us to go longer than year, just a give us a couple of months' notice," Bowersox said Feb. 11.

The other option, however, is to suspend Duque's trip indefinitely to send just a two-person replacement crew in order to save on supplies, including water.

Both NASA and Rosaviakosmos officials have said recently that ISS crews might experience water shortages in the absence of the regularly scheduled shuttle missions.

Botvinko said it is still undecided who will fly to ISS as Expedition 7 and when that launch will take place. "We are still negotiating with our partners," Botvinko said in a Feb. 12 interview.

The Rosaviakosmos official said a delegation of NASA technical specialists is set to arrive in Moscow Feb. 14 for further consultations about options for keeping the ISS permanently manned in the absence of the U.S. shuttles. The official added that the heads of the space agencies involved in the project will have to decide the crew issues.

NASA officials asked Nikolai Moiseyev, first deputy director of Rosaviakosmos, to provide an estimate of how much it will cost and how long it will take to have the Russian space industry manufacture and launch an extra Progress-M cargo ship to ISS this year, according to the Rosaviakosmos official.

The request was made during Moiseyev's visit to the United States in the week of Feb. 3-9. The Russian space agency plans to provide the estimate by Feb. 23, the Rosaviakosmos official said.

Russia initially had been obliged to launch three Progress ships to the ISS in 2003. With the shuttles grounded, however, a fourth Progress will be needed this year to keep ISS fully manned in the absence of shuttles.

Yuri Koptev, Director General of Rosaviakosmos, told reporters in Bangalore, India, Feb. 6 that Russia's ISS partners need to help finance construction of extra spacecraft, noting that one Progress-M costs some $23 million to manufacture and launch. It normally takes 18 months to build one Progress from scratch. Rocket Space Corporation Energia of Korolev presently has 12 such spacecraft in the works, according to Koptev.

Reached by phone on Feb. 12, a Moscow-based NASA official confirmed that the US space agency is sending a delegation for ISS consultations to Moscow and that the delegation should arrive in Moscow within one week.

"Various variants" of keeping the station up and running will be discussed, said the official, who asked not to be named. He would not elaborate.

James Newman, NASA's coordinator in Russia, acknowledged at a Moscow press conference Feb. 11 that his agency and Rosaviakosmos are holding consultations on how to keep ISS up and running in the absence of the shuttles. Newman made it clear however, that NASA presently cannot finance construction of any Russian ships for ISS because of the Iran Non-Proliferation Act.