Russian made Soyuz is on its way to the ISS carrying three crew members one of them is Microsoft’s Charles Simonyi. The 13-day trip will cost his at $1,300 per minute.

While some may consider this as good news for the Russian space program some are worrying that this will make Russia no more than a space cabbie, as their designers will not be able to spend time and money on the next generation space ship.

Soyuz is also aging as NASA’s Shuttle. While NASA will abandon Shuttle in 2010 and will work on their next generation spaceship named Orion, Soyuz will be used in the time being to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Russia currently builds two Soyuz spacecrafts a year for manned launches and four unmanned cargo ships. While NASA abandons Shuttle, Soyuz will be used to ferry crew and equipment to the space station. This means that Russians will have to produce more spacecrafts and cargo ships.

Russians government has already been slow to earmark money for the next generation spaceship and when Russian Engineers will have to develop more and more Soyuz spaceships, no one will be spending on the next generation spaceship.

Now some fear that while all other space giants will build their new machines in the time being Russians will be busy ferrying people to ISS and their next generation spaceship program will lag behind.

Moreover the Russian government is happy transporting space tourists to the ISS as they are ready to pay huge amounts for the trip. But if we consider the long-term impact of this gamble then Russians are all set to lose if they are not able to develop better quality spacecrafts that will make space travel comfortable. When all other space agencies develop new spaceships such as NASA’s Orion, then no one will need Soyuz and the Russian Space Program will suffer because of this.

Via: Physorg66372