MOSCOW (Reuters) -- President-elect Vladimir Putin pledged Wednesday to fund Russia's aging Mir space station, as well as sticking to agreements to build a much-delayed International Space Station.

The 14-year-old Mir had been due to be scuttled this year, but foreign funds kept the space station alive and the lights were turned back on last week by two cosmonauts on a mission to put the mothballed station into operation.

The United States has voiced concern that extending Mir's life might cause Moscow to drag its feet over the $60 billion International Space Station (ISS).

Cosmonauts' Day falls on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's 1961 flight around the Earth in Vostok 1 -- which shattered the United States' hopes of being first to put a person in space.

"The space sector is not only a prestigious sector which makes our country a great power, but it is also linked to economic and scientific development,'' Putin said.

RIA news agency also quoted Putin as saying Mir would be included in the 2001 space budget.

Cosmonauts float the flag

Russian television showed pictures of the two cosmonauts aboard Mir, floating in front of a large Russian tricolor flag. They had earlier used boosters on a Progress M-1-1 cargo ship to correct the space station's orbit.

"It's alright now here, we're comfortable. The temperature is 25 degrees (Celsius; 77 degrees Fahrenheit),'' said cosmonaut Sergei Zalyotin.

Mir was originally designed to last just five years, and orbited the Earth empty for almost a year prior to its planned scrapping. In January, a company of foreign investors called MirCorp offered $20 million in funds to revive the station.

MirCorp has said it plans to invest up to $200 million in the station and has talked of converting Mir into a "space hotel.''

"The space sector is not only a prestigious sector which makes our country a great power, but it is also linked to economic and scientific development."
     

Russia's state space program now runs on a shoestring compared to its Soviet-era glory days and many see keeping Mir as an important reminder of past prowess.

Moscow's contribution to the ISS, which it is working on with the United States, the European Union and Japan, is based on Russia's position as the only country with experience of running a space station for a long time.

Colonel-General Pyotr Klimuk, the head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City outside Moscow, told Wednesday's issue of the military daily Krasnaya Zvezda that it was this that made Russia crucial to the project.

"It's no secret that without Russia, the Americans would not be able to build the ISS. We've gathered huge experience in long-term spaceflight and done unique technical, scientific and medical work to make it possible,'' he said.

Un-piloted segments of the station are already orbiting Earth, but cannot be put into operation until Russia sends up living quarters. The launch is scheduled for July, two years late.