Russia Says Next-Gen Spacecraft Design Ready

The next generation of Russian spacecraft will be ready for test flights by 2017, according to Energia President Vitaly Lopota. 'We have completed the technical design project taking into account the fact that the new spaceship is to fly to the Moon, among other places,' he said. Federal Space Agency Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin says the new ship would be built by 2018 and would be able to conduct missions to the International Space Station and the Moon.

Re:I've lost count

[_merlin]

Nah, now that DPRK has shown that they can put a satellite in a near-perfect sun-synchronous polar orbit on the second try, there's dick-waving to be done. Just wait, they'll deliver something. Expect to see the Chinese space program accelerate, too.

les miserables

[drankr]

Some poor folk would rather see no progress in space exploration than have Russians get us there. I pity those folks from the bottom of my heart - and fingers crossed for Russians, and anyone else willing to invest money, knowledge, experience and time into these projects. Good luck!

Re:Been there done that

[crazyjj]

This is not a program, it's a proposal. Every year they trot out a couple of proposals (remember klipr?) and see if they can get interest and funding.

If not (and so far "not" has always been the case) then they go back to the drawing board and make another proposal in 8 or 12 months.

Over and over

Pretty much everything you just said could be said about NASA too. How many times have they promised return trips to the moon and men on Mars over the decades?

Just watch. This will go nowhere, and next year there will be a different plan for a different vehicle.

Again, ditto for NASA's moon and Mars programs.