Putin was accompanied by the recently-elected governor of the Moscow region, Col.-Gen. Boris Gromov, who has a history of supporting national aerospace activities. The Moscow region includes most of the nation's aerospace enterprises and organizations, particularly Star City.

Putin's visit to Star City was a total surprise to both the command of the space center and leaders of the major Russian aerospace enterprises. He toured the City, concentrating on the center's training facilities. He also spoke with the cosmonauts scheduled to visit Mir this spring (Sergey Zalyotin and Alexander Karely) and two Russian members of the first International Space Station (ISS) crew (Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey Krikalev).

Putin gave state awards to 10 cosmonauts and space officers, then met with Star City the command, leaders of the Russian space industry and representatives of the Ministry of Defense, confirming that the government will fulfill all its financial obligations to the Russian space program and the ISS.

"The space program is not a branch just destined to demonstrate prestige and well-being of the country," said Putin. "It is one of the fundamental fields of activity boosting the development of national economy and science. It is something which makes our country a great power."

Putin supported the idea of keeping Mir in orbit and promised to find money to continue its operation. "If there is a possibility to save it, this should be done," said Putin. "And I see such a possibility."

The executive president will not, however, be visiting space himself any time soon, although he was offered a ride during his visit to Star City. "I believe that cosmonautics is a strictly professional field of human activity," said Putin. "Each gram of weight put into orbit costs a lot of money. I just don't believe that my weight in space would be worth the money spent to deliver it to orbit," he joked.

In an exclusive interview with SPACE.com, Zvezda's general director and chief designer, Gai Severin said, "Overall I got a good feeling of Putin's visit to Zvyozdniy (Star City)." (Zvezda is the leading manufacturer of the rescue and life-support systems, along with flight- and spacesuits for Russian aircraft and spacecraft, as well as the ISS.)

Severin said Putin "made an impression of a man competent in the aerospace-related issues. I think it is a little early to say whether his visit to the City is a sign of the changing attitude of the Russian government to federal aerospace activities. However, the fact that his visit was dedicated to the 40th Anniversary of the Cosmonauts' Unit gives reasons to be optimistic. He is certainly interested in aviation and cosmonautics, and he understands that Russia has to take care of these fields if it wants to remain a great power. I believe that his interest to aerospace activities grew even more after his visit to Zvyozdniy," said Severin.

Vladimir Dezhurov, a veteran cosmonaut and a crewmember of the third ISS crew, shared Severin's opinion. "I feel much better about the future of the Russian space program after Putin's visit to the City," said Dezhurov.

Some aerospace experts, however, expressed a cautious optimism regarding Putin's action. "I think it's all part of his electoral campaign," said Sergey Zhukov, a former cosmonaut-candidate and president of the Moscow Space Club, in an exclusive interview with SPACE.com. "He wants to increase his popularity in the country. On the other hand, the government is planning to spend more money on the national military industry this year and who knows, maybe with the increase of this pie, the cosmonautics' share of it will be increased as well. I would not make any definite conclusion regarding Putin's attitude towards space, but rather wait and see whether his words would be followed by [the] concrete actions of the federal authorities."

Zhukov's cautiousness has been shared by Yuri Baturin, one of Russia's major space policy experts. Baturin is Russia's only cosmonaut/politician, having been a former aide to President Boris Yeltsin, responsible for aerospace issues. "I don't think that Putin's visit to Star City is an indication of the changed Kremlin's attitude towards cosmonautics," Baturin told SPACE.com. "I believe, it was a combination of two factors. The first factor is his electoral campaign. The second one is Putin's skyrocketing ascent to the top power in the country with a great number of different branches of industry of which he needs to get acquainted. Cosmonautics is just one of these branches. There is one encouraging sign, however: He did not have to come to Zvyozdniy right now, before the elections. Why could he not do it in three years from now? Maybe it was his personal interest, but maybe he understands that cosmonautics is extremely important as one of the driving forces behind Russia's attempt to get out of its crisis. Hopefully, his visit to the City helped him to understand that Russia has to increase its space expenditures."

Baturin believes that Putin's visit to Star City contributed to the space education of the executive president. "There are three key people who inform him about the state of the Russian space program," said Baturin. "One of them is Vice Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, another is the general director of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency Yuri Koptev, and a third one is Minister of Defense Igor Sergeev. Hopefully, he will be able now to ask each of these people some questions, and if the answers don't satisfy him, he might look for another source of information regarding the status of the Russian space program."

Vladimir Putin did not make any concrete promises to the representatives of Russia's cash-strapped space program. According to Baturin, this may be less a measure of Putin's neglect of space issues than by a lack of space professionals among his aides. "I had a lot of experience in preparing Yeltsin's visits to different enterprises and organizations," said Baturin. "I analyzed Putin's visit from the point of view of his preparedness for this event. Judging by the questions he asked, by what he said, I realized that his team did not prepare him well enough for a meeting with representatives of the space program. His aides might be good image-makers, but they don't seem to be knowledgeable enough about space. An hour spent in the car on the way to Zvyozdniy could have been enough to increase Putin's awareness of space issues, but this clearly had not been done."