Russia Wants to Launch Manned Mission to Mars

Raul654 writes "The Maimi Herald, via the Associated Press, is reporting that Russia wants to launch a manned mission to mars. The article says that the Russians are hoping to work closely with the European Space Agency and/or NASA. The 6 person, 440 day trip would cost around $20 billion. Should be interesting to see how this shapes up. See also here for mirror article."

Comments

Some problems with this...

[Lordfly]

1) The Russian space agency isn't exactly a leading space innovator anymore. Since the breakup of the USSR, hasn't it been on rather shaky ground?

2) Their track record of late has been less than stellar (no pun intended); didn't the US and other countries have to bail out Russia's contributions to the ISS so far? Also, look at Mir: Fires, computer crashes, collisions in space... and they want to go to Mars? I think they need to take a driving test first...

3) With the faltering Russian economy and shaky government structure, I would think the last thing they should be worrying about is jettisoning money into space to get to a planet that has little to offer with today's technology (no mining, and so on.)

Leave it to private entreapaneurs to get to Mars first. Government agencies can't do it anymore.

Lordfly

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sounds bitter, but

[mtec]

I think you should go - not to Mars, just go.

maybe because

[Ender Ryan]

Maybe because K5 is full of elitist wannabe-intellectual pricks who think they know and understand everything in the world that's going on outside their little cubicle, when in reality they haven't the slightest clue and most likely never will because their intellectual blinders are shadowing reality from their vision?

Re:I wouldn't worry about that...

[thales]

The Foes of Space exploration haven't made it a habit of whinning "We are shooting all that Money into space while rich people do without". The converse can' be said. The Left has a long history of wanting to strip the space budget to buy votes from the poor. Wellfare payments to both the Rich and the poor need to be halted. This dosen't include tax cuts however. The Left also has a habit of calling a tax cut a "give a way to the rich". There is a big differance between NOT taking something away from a person who has allready earned it, and giving something to someone who hasn't earned it (unless you consider voting for the "correct" canidate earning money.) Of course many on the left have the same mentality towards the citizens as slave owners had, that every thing the slave produced belonged to the Master (The State) and any of the Master's "earnings" that were returned to the slave were some kind of gift.