NASA Administrator Charles Bolden assured the general public the International Space Station (ISS) does not need Russia's support to continue to function.

According to the Associated Press, Bolden spoke to reporters in Berlin at the city's annual air show, saying no one member is vital to the ISS. Even though Canada, Japan and Europe would still accompany the U.S., it is Russia that provides the Soyuz rockets that shuttles astronauts to and from the ISS.

"There is no single partner that can terminate the international space station," Bolden said.

Amid tension between the U.S. and Russia over the latter's involvement with Ukraine's Crimea, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin indicated he would end his country's participation with the ISS in 2020. NASA has said it wants to keep the ISS going at least until 2024.

Rogozin was angry over President Obama's sanctions against Russia for their annexation of Crimea, but Bolden insisted this tension has not interfered with space relations. Since the conflict in Ukraine, Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts have flown two and from the ISS in Soyuz rockets, landing and launching in Kazakhstan.

"There is no one partner that is indispensable on the International Space Station," Bolden told reporters. "There is nothing that I see in the tea leaves that says our relationship is going to change."

NASA has contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to fly unmanned resupply missions to the ISS with privately built spacecraft. SpaceX even recently launched a rocket that could soon be capable of returning to Earth on four landing legs, making it totally reusable. NASA said it hopes these two private companies are capable of taking humans to the ISS by 2017.

BBC News noted last week Rogozin may not have been serious because Russia accepts extremely large sums of money from the U.S. for seats on their Soyuz rockets, despite the sanctions. Russia's RD-180 rockets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and NASA pays $60 million for each seat to go to the ISS.

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