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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!
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.
.. 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.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
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.
The navy's new railgun should be able to fire out of the moon's gravity well. Could hit the Earth, or Mars from there. It would be interesting to test acuracy of a 390,000 km shot.
Learn to love Alaska
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
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.)
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
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.
...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
""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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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.
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Posting in order to undo 'insightful' mod.
As long as the commander is named Koenig...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Has the Sci fi story been written wherein the great nations of earth inevetibaly go to war to unceremoniously control the moon?
John E. Stiers' 'Lunar Republic' series.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Looks like Russia's been thinking about a moon base for a couple of years now: http://www.wired.com/2012/03/r...
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.
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!
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.
My back of the envelope calculations suggest that even for a straight line shot from the moon with no other forces in play a one degree change in any direction would result in you missing the earth entirely. Now when you take into account gravity from at least three bodies, what atmospheric conditions will be like in X time when your shot actually reaches earth (keep in mind that for most shots you'll likely be going through atmosphere on an angle), I'd be very impressed if you landed your shot in the right country.
In addition your shell has to not burn up in the atmosphere. Even if you get all that right there's going to be a significant time lag between when you fire your shot and when it arrives so you're only good against very stationary targets. Even if you fire at Mach 10 a competing bomber crew is probably going to have taken off, destroyed the target with an accurate, guided solution, and be home in bed by the time your shot arrives.
In short, an interesting exercise but there are probably quicker, cheaper, and more reliable ways to hit stationary targets.
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?
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.
Please, Russia, keep the style of this lunar rover.
Play Command HQ online
Russia isn't pulling out of ISS. They're in it for the long haul, and they haven't been shy about making that unambiguously known. When NASA announced a tentative schedule to deorbit the ISS at the end of its planned service life, Russia IMMEDIATELY said it would regard any attempt to deorbit the ISS as an act of war. The Russian modules were built (at higher cost) to be serviced and refurbished indefinitely in space, and they fully intend to keep it up there until they literally don't have the ability to keep it in orbit.
Russia's new plan is to launch additional modules to make its half of the ISS capable of existing on its own, but leave it connected to the rest of the ISS as long as NASA's side remains in space. They might reserve the right to close interior doors, have alcohol on board (if they don't already), and tell their American neighbors that there are rooms they aren't allowed to go into, but they recognize that even if the US and Russian sides were functionally independent, having them docked together profoundly improves the likelihood of both crews surviving a disaster.
If NASA were to officially decide to deorbit its half of the ISS on a specific date, I'd be shocked if the Russians DIDN'T politely (but firmly) inform the Americans on board a few days before the separation that they were going to be going home ahead of schedule & would NOT be deorbiting NASA's half as officially planned. There's no way in HELL Russia will voluntarily allow the American half to be deorbited if it has any meaningful value to them in space, even as scrap.
Of course the US would scream, and Washington would claim it was an act of war/piracy, but as long as the American crew members got home safely & smiling, I'm sure the Russians would negotiate the American side's purchase as scrap, and lease-back agreement that would allow the US to continue using it as long as it remained habitable.
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.
It took Apollo flights 3 days to get to the Moon going Mach 32, and they had the ability to do course correction burns while in trans-lunar flight.
You could probably figure out how to get something from there to here at the lower speed of that railgun; it sure would not be easier, faster, nor cheaper than just launching a 1950s bomber from New Jersey.
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In addition your shell has to not burn up in the atmosphere.
Someone else posted that for a 100 mile shot, it would exit the atmosphere (and thus have to re-enter anyway). So I expect it would be able to handle a re-entry.
Even if you fire at Mach 10 a competing bomber crew is probably going to have taken off, destroyed the target with an accurate, guided solution, and be home in bed by the time your shot arrives.
Yea, but they don't have the range to hit my secret base on the moon. The trick is how to build the gun on the dark side of the moon so that it can hit the Earth. That way the Earth couldn't see it and certainly couldn't shoot back with lasers or such.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
I was enormously disappointed when Mir was deorbited. I always thought that it should have been boosted into a higher orbit and left as a museum, but I suspect that the Kremlin had more say in its ultimate fate than Baikonur did.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
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
"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.