Russia Wants To Establish a Permanent Moon Base 313
An anonymous reader writes "Having established its presence in the Crimean Peninsula, Russia is now shooting for a bit loftier goal, a permanent Moon base. 'As reported by the Voice of Russia, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta that establishing a permanent Moon base has become one of the country's top space priorities. "The moon is not an intermediate point in the [space] race, it is a separate, even a self-contained goal," Rogozin reportedly said. "It would hardly be rational to make some ten or twenty flights to the moon, and then wind it all up and fly to the Mars or some asteroids."'"
Talk is cheap (Score:5, Informative)
Every few years, one of the Russian aerospace companies presents a new "plan" to go to Mars, colonize the moon, teleport to the Sun (at night, of course), etc. All they need is a few billion or so to get it going. It's slightly more credible that that letter you got from the Nigerian prince.
I expect that given many tens of billions of dollars, and a few decades, the Russians could manage to do most of these proposals, but there is no intent to actually do any of them aside from a neat-looking study.
Annex? (Score:5, Informative)
Russia has no plans to annex the Moon. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty makes this legally impossible, and common sense shows that it could never (or, at least, not for a good long while) be enforced.
Re:Talk is cheap (Score:2, Informative)
"Okay, let's say you're correct and that the Russian space program is a sham with overly inflated goals. Where does that leave the US space program, given that we have no way to even get to LEO without begging for a ride from the Russians?"
Uhhh... When did you ever get the idea the USA couldn't go into LEO? The USA sends craft into LEO dozens of times per year.... Not sure how this gibberish gets modded +5 insightful on slashdot these days...
Re:Talk is cheap (Score:5, Informative)
Craft but not people.
Re:Annex? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah... you know, back when Ukraine broke off from Russia, they made a deal with Russia over Ukraine's nukes. Basically, when Ukraine declared independence, they had what amounted to the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world.
In exchange for turning over all their nukes to Russia, Russia agreed not to interfere with Ukraine's territorial integrity. (Translation: If you voluntarily turn over your nukes, we won't mess with your new country.)
Fast forward from then (1994) to now, and oh look, Russia ignored that treaty in seizing the Crimea region. So color me particular unwilling to believe that if Russia gets a moon base that they won't try and ignore that treaty if it suits them.
Re:Shoot for the moon.. (Score:2, Informative)
No. Living standards in teh Ukraine are significantly below those in Russia, and the Crimean was one of the poorest parts of the Ukraine. Before the referendum, Russia has promised to raise pensions and salaries of state employees to in the Crimean to russin standards. This will cost them billions. With the troubles and embargos, the Crimean will not generate much income: Economically, it relied on tourim and agriculture. Now there are no tourists any more, and the can't sell their Crimean sparkling wine to the world either. And then the EMbargos hurt Russias ecoomy as a whole as well.
Philipp
Re:Russia (Score:4, Informative)
The legitimately elected pro-Russia government in Ukraine was overthrown in a coup. From Russia's point of view they came in to help those people who had had their democratic government taken away from them by force. Since there is no legitimate Ukrainian government now (elections in May) prior agreements with that government no longer stand.
I'm not saying I agree completely with all that, but people seem to forget that there was a coup and the people of Crimea asked for Russian assistance. The country was broken before Russia came in.