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Just very curious. There are three seats in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and sometimes just one astronaut of the three is a Russian and the other two are either one American and someone from yet another country, or another Russian and one American. Of course one reason is that since the end of the Space Shuttle flights there was a contract that Russia would send one American in their spacecraft to the ISS. The contract was to get expired in 2019 but obviously was prolonged (probably because the Dragon spacecraft once was planned to launch with crew already in 2014). However Russia already sent non-Russians long before 2011 to the ISS. The last Soyuz mission with only Russians was Soyuz TM-30, the last manned flight to Mir, in the year 2000. Why didn't Roscosmos launch any spacecraft with only Russians on board from then on?

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As of 24 April 2020, the Russians & Chinese are the only ones capable of sending people into orbit. The Chinese crewed space program is still in its early stages & only sends Chinese people into space.

People from other countries would like to go to space & the International Space Station is funded by a number of countries, including Russia. The only way to get people from those countries to the ISS is via Russian launch systems. So far the Russians don't mind receiving money for providing a taxi service to & from the ISS & this is why there are non-Russians using Soyuz.

Also being International, it would not be considered good form if the crew of the ISS was from just one country, a balance needs to be maintained.

Fred
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    But what about before the shuttle stopped launching? The question says that Soyuz launches since 2000 always had at least one non-Russian. Why is that? – Speedphoenix Apr 24 '20 at 13:51
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    @Speedphoenix: Because Russia can meet their spaceflight and scientific objectives with just two cosmonauts. Selling the third seat makes a profit for the program. – DrSheldon Apr 24 '20 at 14:17
  • It's called International because multiple nations (especially the U.S., European countries and Russia) go there. This doesn't mean a single spacecraft has always to carry a foreign astronaut on board. Those can fly on their nation's spacecraft if it has any. –  Apr 24 '20 at 15:05
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    @user30007 but they don’t have any, so can’t. – Tim Apr 26 '20 at 15:00
  • @Tim But Russia flew Americans long before the retirement of the Space Shuttle. –  Apr 26 '20 at 15:10
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    @user30007 yes. In exchange for money. – Tim Apr 26 '20 at 15:11
  • @Tim Well, the question is why Americans wanted to pay the millions despite having an own spacecraft. And Russia will continue to send Americans into space when the Dragon spacecraft will fly astronauts too. –  Apr 26 '20 at 15:12
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    @user30007 : because paying those millions is still cheaper than operating their own spacecraft. If Russia refused to ferry them, then they would already have developed another spacecraft. They could do it 60 years ago, so they could do it now. – vsz Apr 26 '20 at 20:09
  • @vsz I rather think it was the presidents' attempts to make the USA more dependent on Moscow. And it's not like the Shuttle had to be retired that soon, and there was the fantastic Constellation program on the way, but it was scrapped by the Democrats. Since no Russian ever flew on the Space Shuttle and probably won't on the Dragon, there's no reason for Americans to fly on the Soyuz except for the time when the U.S. have no orbital spacecraft. –  Apr 27 '20 at 05:39
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    @user30007 : "I rather think it was the presidents' attempts to make the USA more dependent on Moscow" - wait, what? Seriously, WHAT? So your entire question was posted as a guise to promote conspiracy theories? – vsz Apr 27 '20 at 06:06
  • @vsz No, I'm just stating my opinion. Why didn't any Russian fly on the Space Shuttle (with exceptions perhaps but I don't know of any) but Americans fly on each Soyuz mission? The Shuttle Mir project was another such weirdness. No Soyuz ever went to the American SkyLab but Americans went to Russian Mir. –  Apr 27 '20 at 08:00
  • @user30007 - as other comments and answers said, Space Shuttle could not stay for long time on ISS. For long (several months) expeditions the crew needed a ship for emergency evacuation at every moment. Only Soyuz could do it. You can read about Crew Return Vehicle (in wikipedia or elsewhere) - it was planned as NASA's alternative to Soyuz. It was abandoned because ISS expenses went far beyond budget. And about russian cosmonauts in Shuttle - they were. You can read about STS-102. – Heopps Apr 27 '20 at 10:06
  • @Heopps I stated that there might have been exceptions, so STS-102 is one. But Russia's Soyuz takes Americans on each flight with them. The Space Shuttle didn't necessarily had to remain as a lifeboat on the ISS, only the Soyuz could and can, soon however the Dragon spacecraft might become another lifeboat which won't prevent Russians from sending Americans into space themselves. It's a matter of crew rotation, and the Shuttle could have taken Russian cosmonauts from America but this was only done on STS-102 and perhaps on other exceptions. That the CRV was cancelled is another indication for –  Apr 27 '20 at 10:33
  • a conspiracy against the independence of America. –  Apr 27 '20 at 10:34
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    There are many possible answers to why they organized the space flights like this, but for Russia being secretly in control of the USA and several successive presidents continuously betraying the country to Russia (and in such convoluted and nonsense way) shouldn't really be high among them. – vsz Apr 27 '20 at 11:08
  • @ user30007 - please don't take my words below as personal attack. I want to say it's sometimes useful to make a pause for a couple of days and then re-read all the reasoning again. In some moments it helped me to make a clear picture. – Heopps Apr 27 '20 at 11:58
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This is somewhat adding on to @geoffc's answer

The ISS is a joint project between NASA, Roscosmos, and other agencies.
As geoffc mentioned, both NASA and Roscosmos want to always have at least one Russian cosmonaut and one Astronaut from the US on board at all times.

The problem with the space shuttle was that it could only stay docked to the ISS for 12 days (it was initially 6-8 days because its fuel cells had limited capacity, and they were able to take that up to 12 days by channeling power from the ISS using Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS), though the longest flight lasted 17.5 days on STS 80, which was not a mission to the ISS), while the Soyuz can stay docked to the ISS for more than 6 months.

This means that if Soyuz capsules launched with only Russian cosmonauts on board, the ISS might not have had any American astronauts on board until the next shuttle came by, and then again 15 days later when the shuttle left again with all the American astronauts.

Of course to solve this the shuttle would swap some astronauts to keep a rotating crew, and the shuttle would leave the ISS with different astronauts than it came with, but this wasn't always the case, and after the Columbia disaster the shuttle would rotate only one astronaut.

The Soyuz was still somewhat necessary to keep a permanent crew on board the ISS.

Speedphoenix
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  • As a matter of fact, why couldn't the Shuttle remain docked for as long as the Soyuz craft? –  Apr 24 '20 at 16:13
  • @user30007 https://space.stackexchange.com/a/21757/29286 It initially could stay docked for 6-8 days because its fuel cells had limited capacity, and they were able to take that up to 12 days by channeling power from the ISS using Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS) I edited the answer to include this – Speedphoenix Apr 24 '20 at 16:19
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    @user30007 Soyuz gets power from Solar. Shuttle gets power from Fuel cell. So when they run out of LH2 and LOX they are out of power. Soyuz endurance is limited by how long the propellants can be stored before the seals on the tanks will degrade. – geoffc Apr 24 '20 at 17:14
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The Soyuz vehicle requires a custom seat liner to be make the impact of landing safer.

Soyuz capsules return to Earth via a parachute to a land based landing, uses solid rockets that fire in the last few seconds to dump the last of the velocity.

This is not the most comfortable of all possible landing methodologies and the custom seat liners are designed to make takeoff and landing more comfortable and safer.

Thus if you intend to launch or land in a Soyuz you need the seat liner.

During the Shuttle era, if an astronaut/cosmonaut launched or landed across vehicles, they have to bring the liner with them. (Mostly this meant Shuttle launched people brought the liner for later use in landing in the Soyuz).

In terms of crew, the minimum crew is usually 3 (occasionally was 2 during problematic times) and the US and Russia want to have a crew member on board at all times.

The maximum crew was 6, two Soyuz full loads, until the US gets Commercial crew launching when it will be 7 (3 on Soyuz, 4 on US vehicles). Thus any particular crew of a Soyuz will consist of at least on American, one Russian, and then who ever makes sense to fill the spot.

If they launched an all US Soyuz or all Russian Soyuz, when crew changes occur you would have a circumstance with only one nationality represented until the next crew launched.

This could be resolved by launching a third crew, before the other crew departs but has not really been done on ISS much, though it was done more on Mir. (I quibble since occasionally they will launch a Soyuz with a crew for a week or so, who then return in an old Soyuz, for long duration missions that exceed the in-space lifespan of a Soyuz vehicle).

geoffc
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  • The first half of your answer isn't addressing the question why the third seat isn't used by a Russian anymore. And while the U.S. have no active orbital spaceship as yet, Russia sent non-Russian cosmonauts before the end of the Shuttle flights too. And the deal was for until 2019 but obviously got prolonged. As from the other answer and the comments, the simple answer seems to be money. –  Apr 24 '20 at 15:03
  • @user30007 So first half does not address, but does the second half? – geoffc Apr 24 '20 at 15:17
  • Don't you see that yourself? And I addressed the 2nd half in my above comment. But your answer is good. –  Apr 24 '20 at 16:14