Russia To Establish Bases On the Moon 249
ananyo writes "Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has said that Russia will pursue extensive, long-lived operations at the Moon's surface. 'We're not talking about repeating what mankind achieved 40 years ago,' Popovkin said, through a translator at the Global Space Exploration Conference in Washington DC. 'We're talking about establishing permanent bases.' The heads of the space agencies for Europe, Canada and Russia, along with senior representatives from the space agencies of India and Japan were in Washington DC talking about the benefits of international collaboration. JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, also issued a clear pronouncement about targeting the Moon."
It's all well and good until (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's all well and good until (Score:4, Interesting)
For all the 3rd world countries (Score:5, Interesting)
It was the devastated by war Soviet Union that launched the first satellite, the first man, the first space station, has the record for longest space presence AND is right now the only country of launching humans into space...
They were the first when they were poor and are the only now they are poor again. Something tells me that having a rich street full of day traders does not have much impact on a nations capacity to venture into space. It really isn't all that expensive either if you don't fluff you budget with pork.
Can Russia do it (again)? No idea, but being a backward 3rd world nation sure didn't stop them before. And the west is currently begging to use that 3rd world nations tech. And it is not Russia that right now is bankrupting itself with insane military spending.
The tech for setting up a moonbase exist, all it takes right now is will power. And in many ways, going into space is a lot easier then fixing the economy, or getting the banks under control etc etc. It is hard but managable task that more or less requires a leader who tells the rocket scientist to do it, and give them food, shelter and materials. Russian scientists are not spoiled, they farm their own food and launch rockets.
Re:Empty posturing (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA is still doing outstanding science with amazing teams. Just because the shuttles and ISS are a bit of a debacle hardly means NASA is in 'decay'. Please stop spreading this nonsense.
Current missions:
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html [nasa.gov]
Future missions:
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/future/index.html [nasa.gov]
Look at all that political decay.
Is this satire? I can't be sure.
Only 4 missions currently planned for the future ...
(Interestingly, where is JWST?)
The current missions looks impressive, until you discount "Hurricanes" and "Ice Bridge", etc. which aren't space missions in themselves, and Juno, which I believe is gone ...
Re:i volunteer to live with no women? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why wouldn't there be any women?
WHY? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would Russia need a permanent moon base? I could understand if Singapore want some more elbow room, but Russia already has more cold, isolated, and desolate real estate than any other country.