This may fill just that gap for the Iss since the russian seem to want to play hardball on the fact that the shuttle is not flying in wanting to be paid for the service.

SpaceDev has begun designing a reuseable, piloted, sub-orbital space ship that could be scaled up to safely and economically transport passengers to and from low earth orbit, including the International Space Station. The name of the vehicle is the "SpaceDev Dream Chaser™."

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040920/205170_1.html

the russians aren't playing hardball, Harold, They are playing NASA's game, and NASA is not happy because it is not in their favor anymore. When the ISS became an international affair nasa set the rule and all contracts are based on this rule. "All users are required to maintain and support their respective equipment on the ISS, if you lack the abillity to do so, you must compensate those that do it for you" ESA and JAXA don't have the abillity to launch their labortories. to get them launched they had to build and payfor some of the american modules. russia has supported the station by itself since colombia burned up, NASA hasn't given them a dime to help out with supporting the ISS. Russia has met and exceeded its contractual agreements, So now NASA has to pay

I guess the Russians have forgotten the hundreds of millions of dollars we poured into their space program in the 1990's, on top of the billions we spent sending the Shuttle to MIR, flights that without which MIR would have not survived.

I don't believe that Mir would have died without shuttle, they had no problems running prior to shuttle, granted when NASA did shuttle-mir program, it did provide more money for the russian space program, which allowed the launch of 2 new modules for mir, The russians only had problems when they had to start ISS module construction and move operations over to ISS. they couldn't afford both, but in the end it was NASA's call to go to MIR and use the shuttle to get there, NASA needed the operational experience with a space station and developing rendvous and docking procedures with the space shuttle.

When NASA put money into MIR they got exactly what they paid for, they weren't cheated or anything, the russians delivered on time and on budget. now when NASA breaches contract on the ISS and dosn't live up to it own rules that it set out. does that mean that eveyone else should suffer, No. the russians are entitled to their money. NASA has a history of breaching contracts, ESA for the last 20 years has been trying to accuire a manned division of it own, you should look into how nasa screwed them on Hermes, ACRD, columbus, Freedom, MTFF, ARD and the X-38, the X-38 was the last deal between ESA and NASA, ESA is going to the russians now to accuire a manned program. the russians aren't unscathed by NASA either, soyuz TMA upgrade was to be funded by nasa. nasa told them to take a hike when the bill came.

don't get me wrong I like NASA in some ways, its ummaned division is great, but manned and how it spends its money is incredibly stupid, the way they distribute funds, reminds me of a dog looking for a place to shit. 4 billion dollars on the X-38 and nothing really to show for it. 4 soyuz TMA's per year to support a 6 man crew 120 million per year. and its ironic in the end the soyuz will be used as the lifeboat. SLI 12 billion, we have some nice paper designs, X-33, X-34, OSP, venturestar, the list goes on and on, out of the billions that are spent on these manned proposal programs what is there to really show for it?

ESA spent hundreds of millions of dollars in deadend programs with nasa, when it came to NASA launching columbus to the ISS they weren't offered a free ride.

Im glad that the russians are shakeing things up with nasa, nasa needs it

You hit the nail on the head there, Adam, I couldn't agree more with you. I'm only amazed that NASA didn't completely pull out of ISS and screw its partner's even further - maybe 'cos they realised that that'd be the final straw and none of them would ever work with NASA again, and would more likely co-operate amongst themselves to NASA exclusion.

NASA is also constrained by an act of Congress (to prevent Iran from getting nuclear technology) in that NASA can't buy Soyuz launch service. If the act weren't in place, NASA could pony up the money like everyone else for some Soyuz shuttle flights and things would be moving along.

Oh yes...Go SpaceDev! Let's get this puppy in the air before the Clipper and show those Commi...oops, wrong era!