KOROLYOV, Russia -- After destroying their Mir space station under international pressure, Russian space officials made it clear they would now pursue their own agenda and not bow out of a conflict with NASA over sending a tourist to the new International Space Station (ISS).
Pyotr Klimuk, chief of the Star City cosmonaut training center, said Friday that
. It also reflects the agency's plans for the future, which include commercial projects, as well as fundamental scientific research.
With Mir gone, Russian officials hope to use their 30-percent stake in the new station to make a profit.
"At some point, ordinary people, not specialists, will have to fly in space," said Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. "When aviation was just getting started, it was also only professionals flying."
Tito's ticket originally was to Mir, but it was reissued last year when Russia decided to junk the 15-year-old station. Efforts in Russia to keep Mir in orbit failed because of opposition from NASA and a lack of financial support. It went down in flames over the south Pacific early Friday.
Energia, the company that built Mir, has said it plans to design a new orbiter capable of docking with the International Space Station for use by paying corporate customers or tourists.
Some Russian cosmonauts have advocated building a new, purely Russian orbiter using existing designs for the international station.
But Yuri Koptev, Russia's space agency chief, said Friday that Russia would concentrate on its international obligations.
"The epoch of space races is over. The tendency is toward cooperation," he said.
However, Koptev also said Russia would insist on its right to fly Tito to the station because the businessman already had signed a contract.
Dismissing fears of large-scale layoffs in the Russian space industry following the Mir dumping, Klimuk said his cosmonaut training center would grow even busier as it trains more foreign astronauts.
The
plans to train up to 55 astronauts and 40 Russian cosmonauts this year, Klimuk was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.
But many cosmonauts worry that with Mir gone, cash-strapped Russia will be reduced to a secondary role behind the United States in space.
"People who were actively in control are now put in second place as observers for the ISS, and I see them losing their qualifications," said a former Mir cosmonaut, Alexander Lazutkin.
Meanwhile, as computer screens went blank in the Mir control center, workers said their futures lie with the new station. Russia will supply it using Soyuz ships to ferry crews to and from space and Progress cargo vessels to haul up food and equipment.
Alexander Subakov, a Mission Control expert who helped calculate Mir's final plunge, went straight to his new job at the Russian control consoles for the international station on Friday.
"Nothing is eternal. There were no tears," he said.
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