The successful launch this week of a Russian spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians to the International Space Station may have eased anxieties about the future of U.S. and Russian space programs.
But the reprieve is likely temporary, since it followed two recent Russian space failures -- the August crash of an unmanned cargo ship and the malfunction last week of an unmanned Mars probe -- as well as a string of failed satellite launches.
The failures are attracting mounting scrutiny, since the U.S., which scrapped its Space Shuttle program earlier this year, now depends on Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts into space.