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

We are not ready

[iamacat]

Forget the unsolved problems - global warming, ozone holes, overpopulation, nuclear threat - here on Earth that should probably get US and Russian tax dollars before programs that probably will not deliver much practical benefits. Suppose a moonbase is really in the interest of humanity. Do we really need to build a dozen because US, Russia, China, India, Europe, Japan can not agree to invest a billion dollar-equivalents each instead of spending 10 times more money for separate bases? It appears to me that someone truly interested in human space exploration should become an expert in international politics and direct his/her talents in that direction before committing to reinventing the wheel many times over.

Re:Yeah right

[ScrewMaster]

Ever compared the amount of waste and fraud in the American system to that of countries like Norway, Germany or Austria? Apples to oranges, only worse. Our "welfare system", if you can call it that, has never been about helping people. The primary purpose of America's system is to keep people addicted to public funds, so they will continue to cast votes for the people who maintain the flow of money. "Great Society" my ass. In any event ... the funds for Norway, Germany or Austria's welfare systems still comes from the taxpayers, but I presume it's more efficiently utilized.

That, ultimately, is the problem with large-scale use of public funds in any society that has substantial corruption within both the bureaucratic ranks and among the welfare recipients themselves (and that's not counting the crap that goes on at higher levels.) This applies across the board: education, medical care, everything. All these organizations want more and more money to "serve the public" and when they get it, they squander it. More spending isn't the solution ... it'll just get wasted or picked off for private use. Not much different than a typical third-world military regime receiving foreign aid shipments: the people it's intended to help never see much of it because the people in charge of it grab it first. So the countries sending it have to send even more, so that the trickle that gets through will do some good. Meanwhile, the government crooks who are stealing it get richer and consolidate their power. We have a much better system here in the U.S., because we allow private corporations in on the deal too.

The problem is fundamentally cultural, not governmental or financial. Germany can get away with what they are doing because, other than certain specific forms of institutionalized corruption, their bureaucracy is efficient and more to the point, can be trusted. There are no such organizations in the United States that I would trust by default, because by default I don't particularly trust my fellow Americans. Not anymore. The "me me me" generation is running things now, and boy does it show.