Rising costs for Americans to Ride On Russian Space Shuttles

The Associated Press is reporting that the bad economy is now hitting NASA. Russia is reportedly charging NASA a whopping 70 million dollars per seat to fly Americans to outer space. This means that in spite of budget cuts being felt throughout Washington, NASA needs $424 million to for roundtrip tickets for Americans to ride aboard Soyuz to the International Space Station in 2016 and 2017. Not to worry, this includes training. I wonder if they can get frequent flyer miles?