MOSCOW: Washington looks certain to refuse Moscow extra cash to help maintain the International Space Station until Russia stops selling arms and nuclear technology to Iran, a NASA official said yesterday, as Russian space chiefs wondered how their shoestring rocket programme could cover for the grounded space shuttle.
Mr James Newman, NASA's co-ordinator here, said US law barred extraordinary payments to Russia's space agency unless Moscow could prove that it has not shared missile technology or know-how on weapons of mass destruction with Iran, which US President Bush calls part of an "axis of evil".
"Right now, we just can't do it... there is no relief for NASA from that (law), so I would imagine that our negotiations will continue," Mr Newman told reporters. "The (law) is still in effect, so I think that the right people are looking at that and trying to understand what they can do" regarding Russian rocket flights already scheduled for this year.
In 2000, then US president Bill Clinton signed the Iran Non-Proliferation Act to try to force Russia to stop helping Tehran build a reactor that Washington says could lead to Iran's development of a nuclear weapons capability. Moscow pressed on, dismissing US fears as groundless, and Tehran hopes to fire up the jointly built Bushehr nuclear power station next year.
Tehran says its nuclear ambitions go no further than electricity production, but defence analysts were alarmed yesterday when an Iranian atomic energy official said plans for uranium processing and enrichment plants were well advanced. On Sunday, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Iran had begun mining its own uranium ore.
Russia's cash-strapped scientists are dismayed at the prospect of keeping the ISS in orbit without the space shuttle, which is likely to be grounded for months pending an inquiry into the February 1st accident that destroyed the space shuttle Columbia.
Russia has earmarked about $130 million to send two Soyuz rockets and three unmanned Progress ships to the ISS this year. But Russian space agency chief Mr Yuri Koptev said yesterday that Russia could not afford to build an extra $22 million Progress cargo craft that would have to be launched to keep the station's three-man crew supplied.
AFP adds: Investigators have recovered part of Columbia's left wing, considered crucial to the investigation into why it disintegrated.