Craters Ahead.(future of space stations)(Statistical Data Included)

Many aspiring cosmonauts probably feel like Refat Ganyadinov right now.

Posing for a photograph last week by a model of Mir in Star City, Russia, the 12-year-old declared that he's got what it takes to become a cosmonaut: "To be a cosmonaut, you have to feel it in your soul," he said. He was disappointed that he would never get the chance to serve on Mir, due to splash into the South Pacific in about a week. How about visiting the International Space Station instead? "Oh--the American space station?" he said. "That's not the same."

Since 1993, Mir and the ISS have fought like warring siblings for Russia's dwindling space budget. When Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton agreed to build the space station, Russia promised to construct key modules and deliver other goods. Meeting those commitments has been difficult--especially since Mir required funding, too. After years of delays, however, Russia hit a high note in the international project last November. Two cosmonauts and an astronaut opened the station for business, and it seemed almost as though the most difficult period of the project was over. That's not likely. Now that Russia is finally turning its undivided attention to the new station, the tough negotiations over day-to-day operations are just beginning. "We've gone through the courtship phase and now it's time to really be married," says NASA head Dan Goldin. "As with all new marriages, there will be bumps in the road."

Although the International Space Station is supposed to usher in an era of cooperation, many Russians are already disgruntled about NASA's dominance in the project. In many ways, the ISS pours salt in the wounds left by Mir's demise. The problem is that Russia's space funding had dried up over the past few years, while NASA held its own (aside from the Bush administration's proposed cuts) during the U. S. economic boom. "NASA is the power and the money behind the ISS," says Jeffrey Manber, president of MirCorp. In the past 18 months, Manber's company has been working with the Russian Space Agency to broker commercial ventures that would save the Russian space station. Now, with Mir gone, "Russians must play second to someone else. That hurts their pride," Manber says.

The ISS is even less exciting to Russians because they've already been living in space for years. Cosmonauts who've spent their careers operating Mir would rather go to Mars or build an outpost on the moon than sit around in low Earth orbit for another few decades. "Russia learned to dock cargo and manned ships to orbital stations 30 years ago. This is not a new development for us," says former cosmonaut Anatoly Artsebarsky. The Russians might look forward to growing proteins and testing semiconductors in microgravity, but they won't get much of a chance to do these things on the ISS. Three years ago cash- strapped Russia had fallen way behind schedule in building modules for the space station. NASA came to the rescue with $60 million--but in return asked for much of Russia's crew and research time during the first phase of the project. As a result, Russian scientists will have to wait years before they can design and run their own experiments.

In the meantime, Russia is still struggling to finance its part of the international collaboration. The Russian Space Agency and Energiya, the quasi-private company that builds many of the country's spaceships and rockets, hope to cash in on ...