GROUNDED

摘要

When NASA retires its fleet of space shuttles next year, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft will become the only means of transporting people to the International Space Station. American astronauts have trained part-time on Soyuz craft in Moscow since the early 1990s, but recent bureaucratic struggles and outdated equipment are taking the shine off the Russian space program, once famous for its reliability.rnIn May, for instance, a Soyuz crew-two Americans and one Russian-failed its preflight certification exam, a rare embarrassment.