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Russia Wants To Establish a Permanent Moon Base
An anonymous reader writes "Having established its presence in the Crimean Peninsula, Russia is now shooting for a bit loftier goal, a permanent Moon base. 'As reported by the Voice of Russia, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta that establishing a permanent Moon base has become one of the country's top space priorities. "The moon is not an intermediate point in the [space] race, it is a separate, even a self-contained goal," Rogozin reportedly said. "It would hardly be rational to make some ten or twenty flights to the moon, and then wind it all up and fly to the Mars or some asteroids."'"
...just don't let them put nuclear waste up there. You don't want it to rip itself out of orbit.
Battlezone?
The Crimea is significantly less costly.
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Good luck if the contractors are the ones who built roads and infrastructure for the Sochi Olympics.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Wonder is the US or other countries will realize how strategic a moon base would be. Guess not, until the rocks start hurling down...
Is plan: 1: First infiltrate with masked astronauts without insignia. 2: Build government offices, and seize them. 3: Have popular vote 4: Profit!
But lets belittle their effort and then panic. You know like we did with the first space race?
We can say anything about their government, but we can't say that they are not really ambitious.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
And let Russians and Ukrainians eat cake.
Every few years, one of the Russian aerospace companies presents a new "plan" to go to Mars, colonize the moon, teleport to the Sun (at night, of course), etc. All they need is a few billion or so to get it going. It's slightly more credible that that letter you got from the Nigerian prince.
I expect that given many tens of billions of dollars, and a few decades, the Russians could manage to do most of these proposals, but there is no intent to actually do any of them aside from a neat-looking study.
on the moon?
They'll finally get a suitable billboard! It's been forty years overdue already.
Ezekiel 23:20
Just a few hours ago he said that by 2020 Russian army will be one of the most hi-tech and powerful armies in the world. Yeah. Not as crazy as colonization of the Moon, Mars and asteroids, but out of touch with reality nevertheless.
Grow up.
Sounds like Putin read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and decided that strategically positioning himself in the Gravity Well would provide significant economic advantages in negotiating Natural Gas prices. Remember the lesson of Saddam Hussein: it's not the types of WMD that determine the price(or currency) or a barrel of oil: it's the delivery vehicle or weapons platform that decides bargaining advantage.
This is Russia's "Pencil" to counter DARPA's "Pen":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-72
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project
While we're rolling in the mud with the typical MBA mindset of "Return On Risk-Adjusted Capital"(RORAC), Russia & China are willing to take bigger risks to upset the balance of power. It's called "Short Stack Strategy" in Poker.
.. I think so.
I'm all for the U.S. going back to the moon, on to Mars, etc and having the Russians or the Chinese breathing down our necks would possibly be the kick our government needs to get serious....... buuuuuuut...... this just aint it.
The Russian govt and/or Russian rocket people routinely claim they are building new manned space vehicles (anybody remember any of the many Klipper mockups and illustrations?), new launch vehicles, planning moon bases, planning Mars expeditions, etc. They have some very good and competent people, good experience, the aerospace manufacturing capability, and a proven track record, BUT the thing they never get is MONEY and an actual commitment from their nation's leaders. I'm somewhat surprised that they've actually been allowed to build their new launch complex in eastern Russia but that, plus their new model of Soyuz launcher, are probably consuming a large portion of their funds for new manned space activities
Russia has no plans to annex the Moon. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty makes this legally impossible, and common sense shows that it could never (or, at least, not for a good long while) be enforced.
Just temporarily embarrassed space explorers.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Which part are you disagreeing with and why?
Didn't Newt Gingrich also want to estabilish a moon base? It sounds cool, and we should do it, but it's fast becoming the thing to say when you want to sound lofty and forward-thinking but put no real effort behind it.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
They can't even launch Proton reliably, and it's taken them 20 years of R&D to get Angara to the point where they can (nearly) launch it.
As it is, the Russian space programme has gone from world-beater, to being a bad parody of Kerbal Space Program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Talk is cheap. I'll believe they can build a Moon base, when I see it.
I can't be sure what the previous poster was disagreeable about, but every one knows monkeys throw poo, not rocks
Russia doesn't want to establish a moon base, but they're obligated to step up and protect all the Russian speakers on the moon. Moreover the moon is historically Russian, not only did a recent referendum establish that 98.3% of the moon wants to join Russia, but the moon is so close that on a clear night you can actually see it from Moscow!!
I stole this Sig
Turn eastern Ukraine into a moonscape
What did US achieve with all that money and lives. It alienated us in the world stage and achieved nothing of value in the end. Ike was right:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Russia's manned space program basically consists of announcing plans to do amazing things, which come to nothing as they keeping on doing the same stuff they were doing in the 1980s. As opposed to the U.S. manned space program, which consists of making plans to get back to the stuff they were doing in the 1980s, which come to nothing.
(Unmanned is another story.)
'Nuff said.
Has the Sci fi story been written wherein the great nations of earth inevetibaly go to war to unceremoniously control the moon?
Unless they were eating rocks.
...to eventually launch a vehicle from the moon to get to Mars? With less gravity on the Moon it would take less fuel to launch and escape gravity, right?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Ah, so you're a Space Nutter that holds a grudge? Good, to prove me wrong all you need to do is : do it. Go ahead. Build these dreams you've accepted uncritically. You're asleep. You just get off your anti-psychotics to mod me down, but then people more anchored in reality mod me "insightful", it must hurt, eh?
Von Braun's body is a mouldering in the ground so you aint got the moon no more.
The USA had their chance and is not showing any sign of taking another one. There's no point being a sore loser when the game has been given up on. The Russians are at least still trying even though they've had more economic problems to slow them down than the US had when Nixon sidetracked NASA into being a pork factory that could only get anywhere via skunkworks hiding between the slabs of pork.
Instead of bitching about others why not get off your arse, make some noise and make NASA funding an issue worth votes?
I saw a post last week by someone saying they wouldn't think that Putin was going overboard until Putin decided to invade the moon. Obviously the guy was trolling for Russia... little did he know.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If Russia pulls out of ISS then ISS is FUCKED.
And that card is now about to be laid on the table in front of Obama and with NASA looking over Obama shoulder.
By By Birdie
Ha ha ! FU
...that Ukraine is there already!
Also in the news, "Kittenman wants to win the lottery".
..." and "had definite plans on how to ..." are worlds apart.
"Wants to
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
What, and miss the fun of watching you nutcases wake up, one by one, to the harsh reality of engineering limits? Nah, I'll stick around to watch each one of you lunatics admit that no one is going anywhere, ever.
""Having established its presence in the Crimean Peninsula"
Like this was recent.
Crimea has been Russian since 1783.
For my fellow Murricans, that was 7 years after our Declaration of Independence, 4 years before our Constitutional Convention, and 17 years before we moved the Federal Capital from Philadelphia to Washington.
Just so you know.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Going to the moon is expensive AND pointless. You have to do everything you do in Earth orbit, but it has to happen farther away from safety and at the bottom of a gravity well. There's absolutely nothing of value on the moon that couldn't be gotten cheaper by snagging bits off of a water bearing comet, or bringing that same water or up from Earth, for that matter, or mining a few local asteroids in-situ.
Look, gravity is *bad* and expensive. You don't go looking for it. You simulate it a bit with centrifugal force when necessary, but that's all.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Posting in order to undo 'insightful' mod.
Coward. Did you get a call from Space Nutter central or something? "Oh no, someone is making fun of our religion!"
As long as the commander is named Koenig...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Looks like Russia's been thinking about a moon base for a couple of years now: http://www.wired.com/2012/03/r...
Putin moons you!
How do we get the whole thing off the ground?
I read of a beautiful idea in a scientific magazine called Omni. It suggested the use of virtual reality systems to control robots on the moon. This would enable us to build the first colony more efficiently because robots need only raw energy. We send a rocket to the moon, on the rocket we put machine tools and intelligent systems, with which can build both more machinery and the necessary superstructure to house a biosphere. We now have the ability to use our hands at a distance.
The high cost to the human race's colonisation of space, is caused by the complexity and danger of reaching and leaving escape velocity within the earth's atmosphere whilst carrying the fuel up from the earth's surface with which to do so.
The Space Shuttle turned out to be an expensive dangerous white elephant, the reason the Shuttle was so expensive is, because of its complexity with millions of different manufactured parts. There is another route, we can reach the edge of space no problem Burt Rutan proved this with Space Ship one, when he won the 'X' prize by reaching over 100 km twice in one week. Yes the Shuttle was 'reusable' but in name only. They could not have turned that around in a week. One idea could be to create rocket fuel on the moon, there is lots of water on the moon, use solar energy to split the moon's water into hydrogen and oxygen which makes very good rocket fuel. Use the rocket fuel to fuel a space tug, use the space tug to accelerate and decelerate Space Ship One, to and from escape velocity in the safety of a vacuum.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
With the CWII (Cold War 2) approaching, we may as well see a second moon race.
I heard, many years ago, some person from NASA talk on a radio show. He was talking about making a trip to Mars.
He noted that some people ask why they focus on Mars rather than the moon. He said that Mars had some resources. Its atmosphere helps to protect the surface, and some smart people may figure out how to create useful chemical reactions (that might create oceans worth of water, or to start harvesting energy that can be useful for a later trip, etc.)
The moon, on the other hand, is just a big rock. It doesn't even have an atmosphere (useful on Earth for breathing, but even other planets benefit from being able to burn up meteors). There weren't any substantial resources that made a moon base desirable. In fact, the moon had gravity, which would attract more meteors. So, the moon base would need to defend itself from space junk, or the base would need to move out of the way.
In contrast, the International Space Station is much lighter weight, so it doesn't attract asteroids as much as the moon (or Earth), and if there was an incoming threat, then moving the Space Station out of the way (of whatever is coming at it) requires less effort/energy.
So, if we want to build more in space, we could build more (space stations). However, there just wasn't much compelling case to make those space stations lunar (placed on the moon).
So, uh, why are the Russians now suggesting that they want to invest in creating space stations that are located.... on the moon? Did further years of research suggest this NASA guy was on crack (or maybe my vague memory's recollection is), or is it just that Russia Federal Space Agency thinks their way of doing things is just smarter than America's NASA?
Without a Death Star.
It's becomming more and more clear that he's an actual supervillan. Does he have a white cat?
In communist Russia, base moons you!
A good old-fashioned cold-war era space race to kick us in the butt and get our space program working again! I'm all for it!
The cheap snipe at Russia is rather pathetic, since it is not what the article is about. At least, unlike in Kosovo, the Russians actually bothered to have a referendum - even though it was pretty obvious what a majority Russian speaking population was going to decide, when all of their street signs have been switched to Ukrainian, nazi factions who killed so many Russians during WW2 have unconstitutionally seized power, and Russian speaking TV has been shut down.
If this happened in your country, would you not be pretty irritated about a belligerent totalitarian regime, like the United States supporting a coup.
Putin just wait moon people to declare independance and he will deploy russian agents on the moon :)
They had no choice economically. None of the former states could have afforded to maintain them - then what?
Besides, while most of those former states are stable , Georgia and now Ukraine no longer are. Can you imagine nuclear weapons being added to the mix? The fewer countries that have them the better , and if thats unfair thats just tough luck. The future of humanity trumps individual nations pissing contests.
For the cost of the US Iraq War (Part II) alone, NASA could have sent a manned mission to mars. Four times.
If Russia can avoid a trillion dollar boondoggle in Ukraine, they might just be able to afford it, given the relative cost differential between lunar and martian missions.
Just saying.
Great, can we look forward to the moon base being staffed by more of Putin's ski-mask-wearing goon-thugs, like eastern Ukraine?
Engineering limits, like it being impossible for man to fly? Like it being impossible to travel faster than sound? Like it being impossible to exit the atmosphere and orbit? Like it being impossible to live through long-duration spaceflight?
The instant you say "impossible" or "never" you are wrong.
Just because he thinks you're an idiot doesn't necessarily mean he disagrees with what you said. Even a broken clock is right once a day, maybe he thinks you were just an idiot who happened to be right?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
To demonstrate opposition to this scheme, the moon will go dark tonight (Monday) for a few hours around midnight. Get out and show your solidarity by staring at the dark of the moon!
Have you read my blog lately?
Is this the same Russia with a GDP slightly higher than Canada and a GDP per capita slightly higher than Mexico? Just checking.
And no, there's no "-1 Disagree" mod option.
Let them spend the money.
Neil Armstrong feels the same way.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
It's better they take over the moon than even one more country!
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
My country almost got the deal to sell nuclear waste to NK. It'd have succeeded and solved all waste problem, had you idiots not blocked it.
But we're a small country. If US starts doing this I'm sure everyone would applaud and follow.
Nuclear waste for food!
Please, Russia, keep the style of this lunar rover.
Play Command HQ online
I think it was treaty between countries instead of cabinets. Even if the cabinet changes, that should not affect the treaty in any way. And even if there wouldn't be that treaty, annexing parts of other country like that, is illegal.
Almost anything that you heard from Putin or his followers is a outright lie, bad excuse or distortion. Like the lie that it is not his soldiers operating in unmarked uniforms in Crimea or that they have reduced the the number of soldiers on border, waiting to attack Ukraine.
And there was very little threat against Russians speakers in Ukraine. Protecting them was just another excuse. And now Putin is on purpose causing those troubles in eastern parts of Ukraine. Russia is instruction Russian citizens how to go eastern Ukraine an without causing suspicions and then how to get a weapon there, uniform etc.
....so what's the point of making huge investments to ensure that mankind continues on some other planet? On the flip side, billions of humans on earth need food, shelter, clean water, and education right fucking now. Once we get our house in order I could see wasting a few trillion dollars on a cosmic vanity project, but not until then.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
That they have had a moon base in operation since the late 1980's. If Russia or China actually make it to the moon and try to create a permanent base the U.S. will, at some point, have to admit that they have been there for quite some time and do not welcome neighbors.
Seriously, given Russia's resurgent ambitions of Empire, who thinks that this is a good idea?
US economy crashes and comes back again and again. It really sucks.
Or better example - Kosovo. There was no vote there either - Albanians just moved in & possessed it, and the US supported them & bombed Serbia over Kosovo, and finally recognized its independence. What Russia did in Crimea was a lot more legit than what the West supported in Kosovo.
At the same time, 'self-determination', which is so important for the Albanians, doesn't apply to Bosnian Serbs in Srpska.
Submission: Russia Wants To establishing a permanent Moon base
Is English your second language?
Or have you outsourced editing submission headlines to Asia?
This is an opportunity for Russia to develop improved rocket technology, I would love to see them using a hydrogen-nuclear engine or even something like project Orion to achieve this. That would really blow smoke in the yanks faces.
Also if the Russians want the moon they're going to have to barter for it back off Lord British :) Lunokhod 2
There could be a Commander Gorsky after all, but he may not look like the late Phil Madoc in the day. It will appear more like the COBATEK operation where the moontruck operators act drunk while their vehicle approaches yet another moonbase.
UFO and Space:1999 references in one shot.
"I read in Lunaya Pravda today that Luna City Council passed on first reading measure to license, regulate -- and tax -- food vendors operating inside municipal pressure." That from memory. How'd I do?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.