Article Posted on : - Aug 06, 2010

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MOSCOW (PTI): Russia has no spaceships to send foreign cosmonauts into orbit as it is busy in carrying out all the flights to the International Space Station (ISS), the head of the country's space agency said.

"We cannot send cosmonauts from other countries, it is difficult to cope with the American, European and Japanese astronauts. From 2011 all the flights to ISS would be carried out only by Russian spaceships, that's why we are nor even considering the possibility of flight by a South African," ITAR-TASS quoted Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov as saying.

He conceded that Moscow has carried out talks with India about a space mission and the issue was at 'discussion stage'.

Russia has neither spaceships, nor possibilities' for this as it would have to launch four manned and five unmanned space missions to ISS annually from next year as NASA is planning to ground its space shuttle fleet, he added.