[FourtySeven]

ALL right, let's see if I can get this reply out....like fighting though a dense jungle of frickin cyberspace here with the slowdown!.......hehe

What would be a disaster, grounding the Shuttle fleet, or using the Soyuz platform?

I just mean the Soyuz capsule. Short story: Russian space program is underfunded, with all their budgetary crises, and thus, like I said before, it's probably just a "disaster waiting to happen". HOPEFULLY I'm wrong of course, but we should either get the fleet up and running again or scrap the space station for now, because I fear a continued reliance on the Soyuz capsules may be a recipe for disaster.

[Frank_Discussion]

You could be right, I'll admit. However, barring staffing inadequacies at the Russian control center, the ship itself is very well-built and quite an excellent craft.

[Magnum44]

Russian space program is underfunded

A reality little known in the public, is that during the station redesign under Klintoon/Goldberg, the US and Russian manned programs were essentially merged. They are one program, funded primarily by us. Talk to anyone in the astronaut corp to confirm this. Like it or not (and I don't like it), the russian program is OUR manned access to space for the duration.