Russia Adding $50 Billion To Space Effort

Posted by Soulskill on Friday April 12, 2013 @02:15AM from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

An anonymous reader sends news that Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled today a new $50 billion effort to maintain and extend the country's space capabilities. Part of this initiative is a new spaceport located in Russia, which will lead to the first manned launches from Russian soil in 2018. Manned launches currently originate from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. "The Russian space programme has been hurt in recent years by a string of launch failures of unmanned probes and satellites, but Putin vowed Moscow would continue to ramp up spending. He said that from 2013-2020, Russia would be spending 1.6 trillion rubles ($51.8 billion, 38 million euros) on its space sector, a growth far greater than any other space power. 'Developing our potential in space will be one of the priorities of state policy,' Putin said at a meeting in the regional capital Blagoveshchensk. ... speaking to Canadian spaceman Chris Hadfield, currently commander of the ISS, Putin hailed cooperation in space which meant world powers could forget about the problems of international relations and think 'about the future of mankind.'"

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Thankyou Putin! by StatureOfLiberty · 2013-04-12 02:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

It sure would be nice if this served as a wake up call to Congress. Our space program could use some attention too (...the good kind).
Re:the summary is more appropriately by Njovich · 2013-04-12 03:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Soviets had a lot of firsts, but what the US had been doing has far surpassed Russia. Russian dominance ended with the Apollo program. Even now when the US is in a lull, our achievements in manned and *unmanned* space exploration and commercialization are unmatched.
By the current manned space exploration of the US, I suppose you mean paying the Russians to get American people to ISS? ;-)
Look, of course, Americans added a lot, especially in terms of communication systems, material science and military applications. But don't believe our own western propaganda too much...
Don't forget, most of the truly important stuff to enable space travel was done by Germans. The original American space programme was essentially a continuation of the Nazi one. Fundamentally not much has changed in terms of getting something in space (a lot has changed in other parts). We use different fuels, and larger rockets, but it's basically more of the same.