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Russia To Establish Bases On the Moon
ananyo writes "Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has said that Russia will pursue extensive, long-lived operations at the Moon's surface. 'We're not talking about repeating what mankind achieved 40 years ago,' Popovkin said, through a translator at the Global Space Exploration Conference in Washington DC. 'We're talking about establishing permanent bases.' The heads of the space agencies for Europe, Canada and Russia, along with senior representatives from the space agencies of India and Japan were in Washington DC talking about the benefits of international collaboration. JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, also issued a clear pronouncement about targeting the Moon."
The rich are getting really creative hiding their money from the government now...
Nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident, knocking the Moon out of orbit and sending it and the Moonbase Alpha hurtling uncontrollably into space.
I would hope we could all work together to create a moonbase, sort of like the international space station. If all the countries who can, race to the moon as individuals, I'd expect there be a turfwar over the few areas that might have more value to a colony (like fighting over polar ice). It'd be a sad thing to expand the worst of our nature to the moon and make the sands of that distant void red with blood.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Popovkin went on to announce that Drax Industries has been awarded the tender for construction of the new shuttle fleet and moon base. He went on to note that Drax's recent announcement of a toxic orchid-farming operation in the Amazon jungle was pure coincidence, and by the way did anyone know of an orthodontist in Washington who knew how to work with steel?
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
It's perfectly natural for the head of a space agency to want to expand what his agency does.
Follow-up questions:
(1) Has the Russian government actually committed budget to the proposal?
(2) What does Russia expect to accomplish with its moon base?
Note that Russia has been talking about this for a while.
In Soviet Russia, base moons you!
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
error prone
Their space program hasn't lost a single man since the early 70's. Can NASA say that?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
3 areas of concern as seen on the ISS
1) If you go full international everything will take 10 times as long and cost 10 times as much. That does NOT mean you should go isolationist. If the Americans want to drop a lab literally next door, thats OK, even if they want to share power and air thats OK. But you have to be firm about each item being owned and responsible by precisely one nation (or at most a very small group) and you cannot make the whole project or even subprojects depend on that one nation's work. If the Germans want to land a really cool telescope and click it into position next to the base like a lego block, fine. But if you need a full UN treaty to launch some oxygen tanks then you're completely F'd as those guys are utterly ineffective.
2) Permanent as in ongoing perpetual expansion like a stereotypical overseas military base, or permanent as in we've not decided when to abandon ship yet? The danger of not being in perpetual expansion mode is you'll probably end up like the ISS, in construction for 99% of its lifetime and the week after the last bolt is tightened, its time to deorbit and give up. Permanent as in we intend to expand or improve this base to the tune of $1B/yr in perpetuity is a pretty good idea. Project management with a defined yet nebulous end date after which its managerially abandonded is a great idea for making "a" disposable rocket engine. Its a terrible idea for an entire base, or a station, or even a vehicle program.
3) Please don't do the space shuttle and ISS thing of promising everything to everyone for free and instantly, and then scaling back until its a miserable failure compared to its original goals. So the ISS could hold 24 crew. OK, lets build everything to the assumption that the hotel labor load will be 2 people working full time, thats less than 10% of the crew changing air filters and gaskets or unclogging toilets or whatever the hotel load is on a station. Whoops we're imploding the crew size to 6, now a minimum of 1/3 of the on-orbit time is spent maintaining the station. Whoops. Suddenly a station where most of the people do scientific research turns into an aerospace version of "this old house". Whoops.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It was the devastated by war Soviet Union that launched the first satellite, the first man, the first space station, has the record for longest space presence AND is right now the only country of launching humans into space...
They were the first when they were poor and are the only now they are poor again. Something tells me that having a rich street full of day traders does not have much impact on a nations capacity to venture into space. It really isn't all that expensive either if you don't fluff you budget with pork.
Can Russia do it (again)? No idea, but being a backward 3rd world nation sure didn't stop them before. And the west is currently begging to use that 3rd world nations tech. And it is not Russia that right now is bankrupting itself with insane military spending.
The tech for setting up a moonbase exist, all it takes right now is will power. And in many ways, going into space is a lot easier then fixing the economy, or getting the banks under control etc etc. It is hard but managable task that more or less requires a leader who tells the rocket scientist to do it, and give them food, shelter and materials. Russian scientists are not spoiled, they farm their own food and launch rockets.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I imagine that situation is not much worse than what most /.ers live with anyway.
Yeah, their space program is such a joke. All they did was put the first satellite in space, first orbit, first man and woman in space, first space station, first probes on Venus and Mars--in fact, pretty much every space "first" except man on the moon. And they're currently the only country in the world capable of even putting a man in orbit. Ha, ha, what a joke! Let's all laugh at them!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Can I still access World of Warcraft?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
It'd be a sad thing to expand the worst of our nature to the moon and make the sands of that distant void red with blood.
Yeah, reserve that for Mars, which is named after a war god and conveniently already is red. :-)
At one time, US used to be the lead in grand endeavors, but laziness, political infighting, and lack of true leadership has paralyzed the American will.
I hope to live long enough to see America return
As an American I wish the Russians luck and hope they actually do this and succeed. I hope that if they successfully do this it may motivate the powers-that-be over here to emphasize science a little more than they have been. And even if America doesn't take the hint and start emphasizing science again it would be a freaking moon base! :) That is neat no matter who is doing it.
Just FYI, Russia is by definition part of of the First World.
By the original, Cold War definition, Russia/USSR was 2nd world.
1st World was US/NATO/allies. 2nd World was USSR/Warsaw Pact nations. 3rd World nations were everyone else.
This has now devolved into 1st world/3rd world, mainly based on economy.
The decommissioning work done to prepare the shuttles for museum display rendered them beyond any practical ability to return to service. Large parts of the internal structure were chopped out to remove contaminated fuel tanks, etc. It would likely be faster and cheaper to build a new shuttle than to try to fly one of the museum display orbiters again.
Add in the fact that the supply chain for things like external tanks and other shuttle parts was dismantled several years ago, and many of the specialized jigs and fixtures sold off for scrap.
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If all the countries who can, race to the moon as individuals, I'd expect there be a turfwar over the few areas that might have more value to a colony (like fighting over polar ice). It'd be a sad thing to expand the worst of our nature to the moon and make the sands of that distant void red with blood.
Doubtful. The moon is a pretty big place. If we did actually establish separate bases up there, it's more likely the groups would cooperate a bit on their own. They're off in the middle of nowhere trying to survive in a place that could kill you in a second. Deliberately damaging anyone's equipment could easily kill off everyone. Turf wars are something you'd expect when there's a lot more infrastructure in place and specialized "security" people present who will obey inane kill orders from their host country.
The rest of the story: Before the landers, the US had the first successful flyby of Venus with Mariner 3 in 1962 and the first successful flyby of Mars with Mariner 4 in 1964, ahead of the Russians in both cases. As for landers: Luna 9, first soft lander on the moon (Russian) -- landed Feb 3, 1966, operated for 8 hours on the moon, returned 3 series of TV pictures. Surveyor 1, first American soft lander on the moon -- landed June 2, 1966, returning 11,237 photos over 42 days of operations, continued to return engineering data until Jan 7, 1967, over 7months later. Mars 3, first soft lander on Mars (Russian), landed Dec 2, 1971, 14.5 seconds after landing communications from the lander permanently ceased, one partial image was transmitted containing nothing identifiable. Viking 1, first US soft lander on Mars -- landed Jul 20, 1976. Operated for over 6 years until Nov 11, 1982, returning several hundred photos along with life search and other science experiments. The Russians landed first and I commend them for it, but the US missions were vastly more productive; this information should always be included when the statements about who got there first are made.