MAIN ARTICLE: Russia Charges NASA 51 Million Dollars For Soyuz Seats.
Page 2: This Week in Space: Hubble, Herschel, Planck, and Kepler
Poll Results: The poll yesterday had lower than average turnout among members but a clear voice was sounded.
Star Trek: In the News. The old Star Trek has undergone a transformation
Yesterday's Comments: "Oh yea, that's just what we need. A shining beacon all alone in the dark! What's next? Glowy tentacled things running around speaking cryptically while spiders ask "What do you want???" Well okay, I could go for the shining beacon all alone in the dark." -RElland
Today's Poll: Saturday in Space - Weekly Tracking Poll, What Percent of the Budget should go towards Space Spending.
Ah the thrill of being able to say I told you so. As many readers know I have stated repeatedly that the closer we come to the shuttle retirement date the Russians would be raising prices for a human launch to low Earth Orbit (LEO). When Russia was charging tourists 25 million a seat NASA was charged about 41 million a seat, so Russia raised the price for tourists to 35 million. That was the price the last tourist, Charles Simonyi paid.
The new contract, with adjustments for inflation, bring the new price to a staggering 51 million a seat. Time to look at COTS-D ... AGAIN?
More on that tomorrow.
Russia Charges NASA 51 Million Dollars For Soyuz Seats
"Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and NASA have agreed on a new price for ferrying U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) after 2012, a Russian space official said on Wednesday. NASA will now pay $51 million for a single seat on Soyuz spacecraft.
NASA earlier said it planned to buy up to 24 seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft to fly U.S. astronauts to the ISS after the space shuttle is retired in September 2010.
"We have reached an agreement with NASA to increase the price for a single seat on Soyuz space craft for U.S. astronauts traveling to the ISS to $51 million, with adjustment for inflation," said Alexei Krasnov, director of manned flight programs at Roscosmos.
In October 2005, Congress permitted the resumption of space deals with Roscosmos after amending the Iran Nonproliferation Act. The act had banned such deals due to Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, which Washington accuses of pursuing a covert atomic weapons program. Iran says it needs the program to generate electricity. In 2007, NASA signed a $719 million contract for 15 Soyuz seats on return trips to the ISS as well as for 5.6 tons of cargo. That came out to about $48 million per seat, or $144 million for a three seat flight.
NASA said in April "these services are being procured through Roscosmos because the Soyuz is the only proven crew transportation and rescue vehicle [other than the Space Shuttle which is scheduled for retirement in September 2010] currently compatible and able to dock to the ISS and capable of providing the needed services."
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PAGE 2:
This Week in Space: Hubble, Herschel, Planck, and Kepler
"This week, space telescopes were all the rage starting with the launch of space shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Darksyde wrote about the Hubble in his front page post today. Then Herschel and Planck Telescoped got launched on Thursday. So welcome to a new edition of This Week in Space. The biggest nonstory of the week is apparently another false report of the impending nomination of Charles Bolden which he has since denied. Sigh. But on the lighter side, one of the Harlem Globetrotters basketballs went up in space with the Atlantis space shuttle. Boy, those guys have a long reach!"
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POLL RESULTS:
Yesterday's poll: "Is Bolden the best pick for NASA Administrator?", was a success for Bolden, IF he is going to be the new administrator for NASA. In a report on Friday Bolden apparently informed a reporter he had not even been asked yet even though the White House's press secretary Robert Gibb, said Bolden was coming to see the President.
Among DKOS members who participated in the poll 72% thought he was the best pick with only six percent saying no. 13% expressed no opinion.

The old Star Trek has undergone a transformation
"With the new Star Trek getting raves and generating box office, the old Star Treks are going hi-tech. Despite fan squabbling over double-dipping, disc prices and digital enhancements, the results are absolutely dazzling. You get warp speed bang for your outer space bucks.
We are talking Blu-ray here -- a radical transformation of the original TV series as well as improvements to the six Star Trek movies. Meanwhile, there are also new-old collections of favoured TV episodes on standard DVD. One covers the original series and the other The Next Generation.
Those collections, on DVD this week, are minor one-disc releases. Most Trekkers already have everything so these are strictly highlight packages.
The Best of Star Trek: The Original Series contains The City on the Edge of Forever, The Trouble With Tribbles, Balance of Terror and Amok Time, all from 1967-67. City on the Edge is cited as the best episode ever, even though it has a curious history before broadcast on April 6, 1967. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and writer Harlan Ellison squabbled bitterly, with the curmudgeonly writer objecting to Roddenberry's censorship (Ellison told Sun Media last year his hatred never waned, not even with Roddenberry's death). South Park famously spoofed this time-travel saga."
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YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"You are early, today Anyway, can I ask for a reality-check?
As repeated today at in a thread at Simberg's site (see link below) I often see knotted knickers over NASA ignoring the VSE and the Marburger/Spudis/Wingo vision for lunar development. I also see resignation that NASA will never change and frustration that Congress won't do anything about it.
Moving The Goalposts? and Then And Now
But when I propose ways to work around NASA (isolate and island hop like MacArthur did in WW2) many of those same people seem to prefer to ignore that and instead merely whine and cry in their beer that NASA is doing it wrong.
LEO sports arenas, EML2 space races and Singapore entrepot depots might not be my first choice (in an ideal world I like Direct 3.0 combined with robust lunar ISRU and propellant depots) but since changing NASA culture is going to be very very hard to accomplish why not attempt to go around NASA rather than going through NASA? And use whatever leverage can be found?
A "Plan B" as it were.
Am I missing some critical piece in my analysis?" - Bill White
"A Must See

One of the most stunning pictures ever." - Borg Warner
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The link for the image Borg Warner provided wasn't working so I added the picture to his comment. It is an image of the space shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope in front of the sun.]
THE SPACE FUNNY PAGE:
Submitted to the comments section by JekyllnHyde.
TODAY'S POLL:
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.