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Americans Burbank and Pettit, three Russians and a Dutchman make up the six-man crew. NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July. "There have been some impacts ... the shuttle did all the heavy lifting" for space station, Burbank said. There's excess equipment and trash on board, especially given the loss of a Russian supply ship in a launch accident last year. Those cargo carriers are filled with garbage before being jettisoned. "I think we're getting by OK," Burbank said, "but we need to have as much up-mass and down-mass capability as we can to support space station operations at the level we need it." SpaceX -- run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk -- is one of several companies vying for space station visiting privileges. Its long-term goal is to modify its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to the station. In the meantime, Americans are buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. ___ Online: NASA: SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/
station/main/index.html
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