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."'"

Comments

Re:Annex?

[Deadstick]

I'd put a lot more reliance in the difficulty and expense of the enterprise than I'd put in the Russians honoring treaties...

Re:So..

[homey of my owney]

No. Putin views things in black and white. Just like his pre-perestroika predecessors. He views this exactly as they viewed the race to the moon in the 60's. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game, but as any Russian will tell you - once KGB, always KGB

Re:Annex?

[CrimsonAvenger]

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.

If they put a base there, and noone else can even go there, then they pretty much de facto own the moon.

It's not, after all, like anyone can do anything to stop them from doing whatever they like up there - noone else can even get to LEO reliably***.

***: the Chinese can get up there (once every couple years or so). And SpaceX Dragon is going to be undergoing man-rating tests later this year (proving that the escape mechanism works, among other things) and next year so that it can be man-rated. Once that happens, NASA won't be dependent on the Russians, they'll be dependent on SpaceX....