In an interview with SPACE.com on Wednesday, Bean suggested that such a request be made at the highest levels of government, preferably through a direct appeal by President Bush to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people.

"I would like to give it the most visibility possible... it would be a nice thing if the President were to ask," Bean said. "We should take the approach that the Russians are the good guys, the Russians are going to help us out. They are the ones who are going to rescue the space station, to send up additional flights to do the things that we cant do while our space shuttle is unavailable."

Paraphrasing President Franklin Roosevelts comments about Lend-Lease, the World War II aid program that helped arm both England and the former Soviet Union, Bean noted, "If your house is on fire, its OK to ask your neighbor for help -- hell loan you the hose. The Russians are our neighbors and we should ask them for help. They will respond."

Bean's suggestion coincides with a lobbying effort by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) to convince NASA to reduce the size of future space station crews from three to two for as long as the U.S. shuttle fleet remains grounded.

Russia's workhorse, the Soyuz spacecraft, is currently expected to bring a fresh crew and supplies to the orbiting complex in May, with the current three-man crew possibly returning to Earth using their Soyuz "lifeboat" in place of the shuttle.

"I think that the Russians would love to do it... theyre getting ready to do it anyway and this would be the icing on the cake," said Bean. "It would change the opinions of the American people and, particularly, of the Russian people."

Dealing with Russian space authorities is a task that the former test pilot knows well, having lived and worked in the former Soviet Union as backup commander of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project -- the first joint spaceflight between the two superpowers.

"They [the Russians] think a lot like we do. Russia could be one of our greatest allies in the future. The individual Russians ethics and way of thinking is very much like the individual American," said Bean, who also commanded the second excursion to Skylab -- the United States first crewed space station -- spending 59 days orbiting the Earth in 1973.

"I know that we have approached the Russians and well probably have to add some money to get them to increase the number of flights [needed] to re-supply the station, to replace those crewmembers and to re-boost the stations orbit to keep humans in space on a continuous basis," said Bean. "The Russians did that for years with their own Mir space station -- they can certainly do it for the ISS."

Prior to his retirement 22 years ago, Capt. Bean served as chief of the astronaut office during the months leading up to Columbias inaugural flight in 1981 and was also slated to command one of the first space shuttle missions.

Now 71, Bean works full-time as an artist in Houston. His paintings of lunar exploration -- originals sell in the tens of thousands of dollars, with many reproduced as limited-edition lithographs -- are painstakingly crafted from the perspective of one who been there.

"My decision to resign from NASA in 1981 was based on the fact that I am fortunate enough to have seen sights no other artist ever has," Bean said, "and I hope to communicate these experiences through art."

One of Beans works, "Night Launch," is currently displayed in the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum and a collection of his paintings, "Apollo: An Eyewitness Account," was published as a coffee-table book in 1998.

Reflecting upon the loss of the Columbia crew last week for the Massachusetts church congregation, Bean offered words of solace. "It's difficult to push back the boundaries of knowledge. We have a better world because they made the sacrifices. These are things astronauts know."

One of only twelve humans to leave footprints on the lunar surface, Bean is confident that NASA will solve what went wrong during Columbias final moments and believes that the space shuttle is still the best method to carry humans into orbit.

"We built the space shuttle to construct a house in space and to supply it -- the name tells you that. I want them to build another orbiter to replace [Columbia] and keep on working as we are."

Bean doesnt believe that a new space plane is the answer to the Columbia tragedy. "If we try to develop a new space plane, in my opinion, it will take eight years or more and cost billions and when you finish it, youll have the same growing pains that you have with this shuttle."

Developing a space plane will be a lot harder than the shuttle... and the shuttle is the best that we can do at the moment. We dont want to bite off a lot more than we can chew. Talk is cheap when it comes to new equipment and it never works out."