MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax-AVN) - One of the first cosmonauts, Pavel Popovich, twice honored as a hero of USSR, told a news conference in Moscow on Wednesday that it would take USD3bn-5bn to create a Yuri Gagarin space station to replace the Mir orbiting space station dismantled in 2001.
"Dismantling Mir was a big mistake, since it could have functioned for at least another five years," stressed the cosmonaut.
He believes that the damage done to Russia in the wake of this event could be compensated by the Yuri Gagarin space station project, pioneered by the International Fund for Russian Aeronautics Support, whose Trusteeship Council is led by Russia's former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov.
Asked by Interfax about the future fate of the International Space Station, which has been experiencing difficulties since the U.S. Columbia shuttle accident, Popovich replied that "the ISS needs to be saved to escape Mir's bad luck."
He was puzzled by the U.S. refusal to provide at least USD50m to keep the ISS functioning, as this would be in the interests of all humanity.
"And this comes at a time when the Americans are showing no reluctance to throw billions of dollars into the war in Iraq," Popovich added with bitterness.