More money is going to the Russians to launch Americans into space.

The cost is nearly a billion dollars -- if Congress signs off on it.

It's a request NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden didn't want to make, but it's necessary if the U.S. wants to keep sending our astronauts to the International Space Station until our country regains the ability to launch our own people into space.

Bolden sent a letter to Congress this week.

In it, a request for $490 million to foot the bill for six seats for US astronauts on Russian Soyuz rockets flying through 2017.

It breaks down to $82 million a seat, up from the previous amount of $71 million --  just to fly one astronaut to the ISS.

Bolden is requesting the money because of budget cuts delaying the U.S.'s commercial crew program. That program will once again allow the U.S. to ferry our astronauts to the orbiting outpost without reliance on Russia.

"This is the reason you don't want to cut the NASA budget," said US Senator Bill Nelson, D-Florida.

Nelson says the cuts in D.C. seriously jeopardize the goal of sending astronauts up in commercial spacecraft built by companies like SpaceX and Boeing by 2017.

"A bunch of those folks up there want to cut across the board, including NASA. Then we will be delayed another two years, all the way to 2019," he said.

That was confirmed by Bolden in his letter to Congress.

Retired space shuttle astronaut Bob Springer is a veteran of two missions. He hates to see the country still in this predicament four years after the shuttle program's retirement in 2011.

"Everybody gets it. Why doesn't it translate into activity at the Congressional level, or at the administration level that releases that funding and keep the program on course?" Springer said.

President Obama's 2016 budget request for NASA's Commercial Crew Program stands at $1.2 billion.

But a House bill funds the program at $1 billion. The Senate's bill on the table is just $900 million.

Both of those are hundreds of millions short of NASA's request.