Russia Plans Its Own Moon Base

Socguy writes "After being rebuffed by NASA, Russia now plans to build its own moon base by as early as 2027. The nation now plans to send a manned mission to the moon by 2025 and establish a permanent base shortly thereafter. 'According to our estimates, we will be ready for a manned flight to the moon in 2025,' Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov told state news agency RIA Novosti. A station that could be inhabited could be built there between 2027 and 2032, he said. While Russia will be refurbishing existing spacecraft, the U.S. is taking a different approach after the space station is finished and plans to scrap the space shuttle program in favour of a new kind of spaceship to be called Orion."

Comments

Re:Yeah right

[dniq]

Yes, Russia is screwed up quite a bit. But how is that different from the US, for example? Doesn't seem like US can make its shuttles fly without falling apart. And then again, look back at New Orleans disaster - how US has handled that one. And yet, Bush thinks it's appropriate to tell other countries what they should do and how, while the US can't even handle its own internal issues. I think that what Russians do might actually revitalize the spirit of the people, make them feel proud again. There's quite a lot of despair among Russians, and this might be one of the things that could change that, even if just a little bit.

Re:Fuck you.

[Dilaudid]

Nice title - how exactly can a cock like you get voted +4 insightful? An asteroid hitting planet could be bad therefore don't even try. Just find a new planet - to fuck up? Can someone put a "no dumb Americans" filter on the comments please - I don't care about your fucking democrats, or republicans. You're irrelevant now.

Re:Yeah right

[phantomlord]

You mean to tell me it spends more on this than on defense? Not even close! Defense used to be 20% of the whole budget in non war years. You know what it is now when we have an unnecessary war entered under false pretenses, which we are coincidentally losing? Does anyone even know what IRAQ cost? What it's going to cost over the next 10 years? Don't forget a lot of money is wasted on pork projects and things like NASA. 2007 estimated federal budget(in billions):
National Defense: 447

Education: 88
Health: 285
Medicare: 377
Income Security: 357
Social Security: 556

Let's throw in a wild and crazy overly inflated $200 billion more for Iraq. That puts us at $647 billion for defense and $1663 billion for welfare spending out of a budget of $2592 billion. Even if you're one of those people who insist that SSDI/SSI "shouldn't" count (though it obviously does), that still leaves the social programs at $750 billion which is still more than defense. Also, states don't spend a whole lot on defense but do spend a ton on welfare in addition to what the feds spend. Then on top of that, we also have local taxes (sales tax, property taxes, etc) of which, a good portion goes to social programs and none of which goes to military spending.

And as long as you want to talk about percentages of federal budget, that puts military spending (including inflated Iraq numbers) at 25% with welfare spending at 64%. Now, I can point to the federal government having the power to provide for a national defense in the Constitution. Can you tell me where, specifically, the federal government was granted the power to create a Ponzi retirement scheme, mess with local education issues, create public medical insurance programs, etc? It is duplicitous if you support the federal assumption of ungranted power for such programs but don't support something like the Patriot Act. Either you support federal power grabs or you don't.

As for ongoing costs of policies.. Lets look back to 1960 in comparison:
National Defense: 48

Education: 1
Health: 0.8
Medicare: none
Income Security: 7
Social Security: 12

$48 billion in defense compared to just under $21 billion for welfare on a $92 billion budget

1970? mid-Vietnam
National Defense: 82

Education: 9
Health: 6
Medicare: 6
Income Security: 16
Social Security: 30

Total budget: 196

1980
National Defense: 134

Education: 32
Health: 23
Medicare: 32
Income Security: 87
Social Security: 119

Total budget: 591

1990
National Defense: 299

Education: 37
Health: 58
Medicare: 98
Income Security: 149
Social Security: 249

Total budget: 1253

2000
National Defense: 294

Education: 54
Health: 155
Medicare: 197
Income Security: 254
Social Security: 409

Total budget: 1789

Calculating for inflation, that 1960 $48 billion for defense is $320 billion in 2006 dollars. That $294 billion in 2000 is $344 billion in 2006. Non-Iraq military spending is pacing a little ahead of inflation. Can you guess which programs are far outpacing inflation and have gone from 23% of the budget in 1960 to 64% of the budget today? Hint, they're the programs that you say "cost less" than defense spending. And again, that is only at the federal level. States and local governments add hundreds of billions more in social spending.

As for wasting money on NASA, $25 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to that $1663 billion in welfare spending. Not only that, but I can make an argument for NASA providing national defense benefits (which is a power granted to the feds).

*My budget numbers were taken from hist03z1.xls from http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/