Russia To Study Martian Moons Once Again 119
Robbie writes "The Russian space program once faced bleak prospects, receiving meager government funding. Meanwhile, the United States and the ESA continued to send automatic probes to the Red Planet. NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are now crawling on the planet's surface, while their Russian prototypes never lifted off and are now on display at the Space Research Institute's museum.
However, the situation seems to be improving today. Under a stage-by-stage national program for studying Mars, the Phobos-Grunt automatic probe will be launched in October 2009. This cutting-edge modular spacecraft costs just 1.5 billion rubles ($64.4 million)."
Phobos Grunt = Doom guy (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not one of those killjoys who think you have to completely solve all human ills before launching anything into space, but it's a big mystery how Russia can come up with money for space, and yet can't seem to raise the standard of living enough to stop its demographic implosion and high rates of unemployment and deadly alcoholism.
Because if you actually studied Economics instead of minority languages, you would understand that Russia is already overspending on its social programmes. Giving money to the poor is the best way to fuel the inflation. Plus 65M$ is a drop in a bucket compared to the current Russian currency reserves.
I am not one of those killjoys who think that poor people shouldn't be helped at all and that the markets should completely take over the welfare functions but it's a big mystery how some people fail to see the big picture even though they routinely travel through the country and are exposed to the economic processes taking care there.
Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not one of those killjoys who think you have to completely solve all human ills before launching anything into space,
I am not one of those killjoys who think that poor people shouldn't be helped at all and that the markets should completely take over the welfare functions .
I study neither economics nor minority languages. It seems to me however that quite a bit of corruption has a negative effect on both capitalistic and socialistic programs.
A prestige project is good for national morale and could help the country as a whole. At 65M$ (10â approx) it isn't all that expensive. Of course the whole program costs more.
Keeping it in perspective, the russian gdp is 1.3 trillion $, the budget is 299 billion$ in, 265 billion$ out. Meaning about 24 billion $ is surplus. 65M$ is negligble.
Phobos is intriguing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:1, Interesting)
Unlike India with it's various classes and such things as "untouchables" at least in Australia there is a genuine continuing effort to -try- and improve things for the Aboriginals. The issues surrounding the disproportionate level of poverty, disease, crime etc with Aboriginals are complex to say the very least but at least we're trying to find a way to make things better. I know around here there have been many success stories.
I wish they would go back to Venus (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically all of our knowledge of the surface of Venus comes from the Soviet Venera [mentallandscape.com] spacecraft. The Soviets developed the ability to land spacecraft on the hellishly hot surface of Venus, conduct experiments, and send back some pretty cool pictures [mentallandscape.com].
Given that Venus is pretty similar to the Earth, except with run-away global warming, and that no other space agency has seen fit to do any surface missions, I wish that the Russians would send some more landers to Venus.
Re:Phobos is intriguing (Score:3, Interesting)
Phobos is dynamically very interesting. Its orbit is decaying, due to its tidal interaction with Mars, and yet the tide it raises in Mars (as seen by its orbital decay) indicates a flexibility in the crust and mantle of Mars that is not in agreement with other measurements.
Re:That's no moon... (Score:3, Interesting)
You are aware that in the 1950's there was a serious proposal from the Soviet astrophysicist I.S. Shklovsky that Phobos actually was a space station ? This hypothesis attempted to explain the obital decay of the moon by atmospheric drag, which meant that it had to have such a low mass to area ratio that it basically had to be hollow.
Now the model for the orbital decay of Phobos is that it is due to tidal friction, but the spacecraft idea was seriously entertained for a while.
Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:3, Interesting)
If they can really build spacecraft to bring back frigging soil samples from a martian moon for only 60 MBucks, wouldn't economy rather dictate that other nations out-sourced their development to Russia? It might actually help their economy and total global friendship and all that. And the budget of {NA|E}SA.
Re:Bread and circuses, minus the bread (Score:1, Interesting)
Poverty in India == Caste? Last I looked, the Chief minister of my province, and of a majority of most other provinces, were "lower" caste. There is more than 35-40% affirmative action. The poor are still poor because of the same causes that exist worldwide - the the top of the economic pyramid always denies access from the bottom to their resources ...
Who the fuck feeds you this meme of Poverty in India == Caste? Perhaps your friendly local church that, by mixing myths about India from reality there, seperates you from your money to proseltyze and convert those poor "low-caste" Indians into pliant altar boys and organ donors.