Russian, American blast off into orbit

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan -- American astronaut Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko thundered toward the international space station Saturday as those who stayed on Earth hailed the opening of a new chapter in space travel after the Columbia shuttle disaster.

The launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket was vital to keeping the station manned in the wake of February's Columbia accident, which killed seven astronauts and grounded the shuttle fleet. It also represented renewed prominence for Russia's space program, which has been reduced to ferrying tourists in recent years in an effort to stay afloat financially.

Strapped snugly in their Soyuz TMA-2, Lu and Malenchenko set off on a journey taking them some 250 miles above Earth for a six-month stay on the space station.

The nearly 8-ton craft disappeared into a bright morning sky. About nine minutes later, Russian flight controllers announced it had entered orbit safely and was chasing the space station for a Monday docking. The announcement brought a round of applause, and Russian officials began pouring brandy.

The trip followed a breathless race by Russian and American experts to get the mission and its crew ready after shuttle flights were suspended. Lu and Malenchenko initially were scheduled to ride to the space station last month on the shuttle Atlantis.

"Basically, it came to this: Right now there is only one ship that can take a crew to the international space station, and it's ours," said Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for Russia's space agency. "Russia has to do it. No one else, not even the Americans, can right now."

The Russian Soyuz, whose primary role had been to serve as an emergency evacuation craft for the station, is now the only ship capable of carrying crews to and from the $60 billion space outpost.

"This is something that I'm sure the history books will write about," Frederick Gregory, deputy administrator of NASA, said at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome, located in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. "You have to be impressed with the Russian ability to simplify a very complex action."

Lu's fiancee, who watched the launch in the Kazakh steppe, said it was a great achievement.

"After the tragedy we've endured, we just feel so proud to be part of this," Christine Romero said. "We are riding on their coattails."

A week after Malenchenko and Lu arrive, the station's current inhabitants, U.S. astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit and cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, will come home on the Soyuz TMA-1 currently docked to the station.

With its space budget a fraction of what it was in the Soviet era, Russia has struggled to find ways to earn cash for its program. It sold two trips to space in 2001 and 2002 for about $20 million each.

Russia virtually has frozen construction on its segment of the station because of money problems.

"Unless we finish the Russian section, we can forget about our scientific programs in space," Russian space agency chief Yuri Koptev said Saturday, according to the Interfax news agency. "The Americans will have their own segment, as will the Japanese, while we will work as spaceship drivers."

Koptev said NASA's new reliance on Russia after the grounding of the shuttle fleet should translate into more financial assistance from the United States. That topic will be on the agenda when he meets with NASA officials May 5.

"Russia will face an additional burden if, in the worst-case scenario, shuttle flights are resumed a year later," Interfax quoted Koptev as saying. "We need financial support from our partners."