Russia Planning Double Mission to Mars

dylanduck writes "Apparently Russia has revived a previous plan to send a spacecraft to Phobos, a tiny Martian moon. Turns out it's a cool place to land - much easier than the surface as far less deceleration is needed, it should have plenty of Mars rocks spattered on the surface and it's just 9000km above the surface. Some think it the perfect place for a Mars moonbase." From the article: "A mission devoted to the moons could explain how the satellites are held together - whether they are piles of rubble loosely held together by gravity or solid chunks. Most scientists assume the heavily cratered moons are captured asteroids, Christensen told New Scientist. But it is actually quite hard for a planet to capture an object into its orbit - most things just skim by. 'So how it got there is a bit of an enigma,' Christensen says."

Comments

How are they going to pay for it

[jockm]

I am all for increasing space exploration, and by all means the more people (or countries) at the party the better, but has there been any coverage of how they plan to pay for this effort?

They had serious problems meeting their obligations for the ISS, they operated MIR on a shoestring, the economy is improving but do they have the cash for it?

I hope they do. I hope the US shakes more money loose from the trees for our own programs as well.