"It puts Russia in a very powerful position."

CNN:

Experts are growing increasingly concerned that the United States will have to rely entirely upon Russia to take astronauts to and from the international space station for at least five years.

Observers say the situation is all the more worrying as after NASA announced a delay in the launch of its next-generation Orion spacecraft.

... "It is a vulnerability," said John Logsdon, director of the space policy institute at George Washington University.

"Any time you are relying on a single system to do a critical task, you are vulnerable if that system has problems.

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