MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia may send a new crew to the Mir space station on Jan. 18, but the government hasn't decided how much longer to keep the 14-year-old outpost in orbit, an official said Tuesday.
Four Russian cosmonauts -- a two-man main crew and two-man backup team -- and one American potential "space tourist" are preparing for the flight at the cosmonauts' training center outside Moscow, said the center's chief, Col. Gen. Pyotr Klimuk, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
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The American, businessman Dennis Tito from Santa Monica, Calif., is hoping to travel to the station for $20 million.
Mir has been flying unmanned since its last crew left this summer. The Russian government earmarked $27 million last month for two supply rockets to deliver fuel to the Mir, but remained uncertain about whether to send another crew. A decision about the Mir's fate was put off until February.
But without that decision, it remained unclear what the next Mir crew would do if it goes up in January.
The crew may help lower the Mir's orbit if the government decides to abandon the space station, Klimuk said. Otherwise, the cosmonauts will conduct science experiments, he said.
The private Netherlands-based MirCorp has leased time on Mir and wants to use the station for commercial purposes, such as trips for tourists like Tito.
MirCorp has been trying to persuade the government not to abandon Mir, but Russian space officials seem to have grown skeptical that MirCorp can follow through with its plans.
The United States has pressured Russia to deorbit Mir and concentrate its scarce resources on the International Space Station, a 16-nation project led by the United States.
The first permanent crew of the international station -- mission commander William Shepherd, a NASA astronaut, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev -- have been living on the station for two weeks, installing and reactivating equipment, setting up communication systems and conducting experiments.
Russia plans to launch a cargo ship on Nov. 16 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver fuel and food to the international station, ITAR-Tass reported.
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