This article originally appeared on the Motley Fool. Ever since the United States retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011, NASA astronauts have had to hitch rides to the International Space Station (ISS) in Russian Soyuz spaceships -- paying Russian space agency Roscosmos for the privilege. The plan is for NASA to soon switch over sometime soon to using its own rockets -- built by SpaceX and Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin's (NYSE:LMT) United Launch Alliance joint venture -- but it remains an open question when these companies will have their spacecraft ready for use. In the meantime, American astronauts must continue to fork over $82 million a seat in payment for rides aboard Soyuz. And what is Russia doing with all that money, you ask?