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NASA official confident of Russian space efforts

Shuttle December 3, 1998
Web posted at: 11:26 p.m. EDT (2326 GMT)

(CNN) -- With the second segment of the International Space Station scheduled for launch Friday morning, a senior NASA official expressed confidence Thursday in its Russian partners' efforts.

The Russian space program has been hobbled by the country's economic struggles in recent years. But in a chat session on CNN.com on Thursday, Alan Ladwig, senior advisor to NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, said he expects the Russians to rebuild their space effort when their economy improves.

"When they have money, they produce superior hardware," Ladwig said. "It will be some time before their economy will be strong enough to support the world-class capability that they had during the Cold War."

The Russians launched the first element of the ISS last month, and the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour will link a second segment to that one.

Endeavour was scheduled for launch Thursday, but a hydraulic pressure alarm forced NASA to postpone the start of the mission. The ship is scheduled for a second launch attempt Friday morning.

Ladwig said NASA has been keeping tabs on the Russian program and has a framework in place to follow its partners' progress.

"We've had experts outside of NASA go to Russia to evaluate the situation," he said. "We have NASA employees on the scene in Russia. and we have established a series of milestones and expectations to ensure that Russia can achieve its commitments."

Russian scientists and engineers are cooperating with NASA and other agencies on unmanned missions to Mars as well as other aeronautical and aviation projects, Ladwig said.

NASA ready for Mir to come down

Meanwhile, the Russians' 12-year-old Mir space station is still in orbit, having survived a string of near-disasters in the past two years.

Ladwig said NASA would like to see the Russians bring Mir down in a controlled re-entry and direct their limited resources to the ISS.

Russian space officials have promised to bring Mir down by June.

Ladwig said the ISS will be a stepping stone for future human exploration, perhaps a mission to Mars. He said he expected human footprints on the red planet within his lifetime, perhaps by 2025.

Meanwhile, NASA hopes to conduct tests on a successor to the shuttles by next year. The goal of the so-called X-33 project is to reduce the cost of launches, which now run about $8,000 a pound. The goal is to eventually get costs down to $100 a pound, he said.


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