Editing Shuttle–Mir program (section)

===Finances===
Since the [[breakup of the Soviet Union]] a few years earlier, the [[Economy of Russia|Russian economy]] had been slowly collapsing and the budget for space exploration was reduced by around 80%. Before and after Phase One, a great deal of Russia's space finances came from flights of astronauts from [[ESA|Europe]] and other countries, with one Japanese [[Television station|TV station]] paying $9.5&nbsp;million to have one of their reporters, [[Toyohiro Akiyama]], flown aboard ''Mir''.<ref name="Dragonfly"/> By the start of Phase One, cosmonauts regularly found their missions extended to save money on launchers, the six-yearly flights of the [[Progress spacecraft|Progress]] had been reduced to three, and there was a distinct possibility of ''Mir'' being sold for around $500&nbsp;million.<ref name="Dragonfly"/>

Critics argued that the $325 million contract NASA had with Russia was the only thing keeping the Russian space program alive, and only the Space Shuttle was keeping ''Mir'' aloft. NASA also had to pay hefty fees for [[training manual]]s and equipment used by astronauts training at [[Star City, Russia|Star City]].<ref name="OffPlanet"/> Problems came to a head when [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC's]] ''Nightline'' revealed that there was a distinct possibility of embezzlement of American finances by the Russian authorities in order to build a suite of new cosmonaut houses in [[Moscow]], or else that the building projects were being funded by the [[Russian Mafia]]. NASA administrator Goldin was invited onto ''Nightline'' to defend the homes but he refused to comment. NASA's office for external affairs was quoted as saying, "What Russia does with its own money is their business."<ref name="Dragonfly"/><ref>{{cite web|title=SpaceViews Update 97 May 15: Policy|date=May 15, 1997|url=http://seds.org/spaceviews/970515/pol.html|publisher=Students for the Exploration and Development of Space|access-date=April 5, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050312050039/http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/970515/pol.html|archive-date=March 12, 2005}}</ref>