http://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-space-general-01g.html
Russian Communist Calls For ISS Pullout If US Builds Missile Shield
Moscow (Interfax) Feb. 7, 2001
The leader of the Russian Communist Party and of its faction in the Russian
State Duma Gennady Zyuganov sent an open letter to President Vladimir Putin
Wednesday, urging him to prevent the crashing of the orbital station Mir."The
U.S. leadership's firm decision to deploy a national missile defense system
is making one look at the problem of the orbital complex Mir from an
absolutely different angle."Russia's equitable cooperation with the U.S.
within the framework of the International Space Station project is becoming
increasingly problematical," Zyuganov writes.Taking this situation into
account, the Russian leadership must mothball the orbital complex Mir in its
orbit, Zyuganov wrote."The parliament, the trade unions, the Russian Academy
of Sciences, the cosmonauts are all against Mir's dumping. Only the
government's financiers, who have frozen the funding of the space program,
have come out for crashing the station," he added.Menahwile, Russian
President Vladimir Putin has named Alexander Medvedev as the new chief of the
Khrunichev spaceship contruction centre, the Kremlin told AFP
Wednesday.Medvedev, 48, was appointed to replace Anatoly Kiselyov who
recently resigned for health reasons.Russia's 15-year-old space station Mir,
due to be ditched in the Pacific Ocean early next month, was built at the
Khrunichev space centre, west of Moscow, as were two parts of the new
International Space Station (ISS).
