India Ends Russian Space Partnership and Will Land On the Moon Alone

An anonymous reader writes: The Russian space program has experienced numerous accidents and delays recently, leading Indian officials to call into question its long term viability. Now India has decided to pull out of a partnership with Russia for a mission to the moon. According to the Examiner: "Previously, India was scheduled to launch a Russian lander on one of its rockets and send it to the lunar South Pole. Now, according to a story in Russia and India Report, India will go it alone, building its own lander to touch down on the lunar surface within the next few years.

Comments

Twenty five years of science destruction...

[virens]

... brought this shithole called russia to complete degradation of engineering and scientific potential. Typical salary of research assistant used to be 200 USD (back in 2008 when I worked there). Almost impossible to buy any modern (i.e. Western) equipment - local hardware has exorbitant pricetags with chinese-type quality. Median age of "researchers" was 65 years old. Outdated equipment from museums (I remember doing optical experiments with calibrated light sources from 1950 (sic)). Stupid nationalism - you cannot write Ph.D. in English, and almost no subscriptions to modern journals. They still live in 1960x, thinking they are great. I'm surprised that India waited this long to ditch those pompous morons.

Full disclosure: I used to work in MePHI as a research associate. I left this shithole, like everyone who wanted to do something worth of their life, and never looked back.

Everyone is going to the Moon...

[__aaclcg7560]

Except for the United States. We're too busy planning to hump an asteroid in lunar orbit to explore future mining opportunities. Never mind that mining is illegal under existing space treaty.

Re:Everyone is going to the Moon...

[radarskiy]

There is absolutely nothing in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that prevents commercial exploitation, and it actively encourages scientific exploitation. What it prohibits is national appropriation, i.e. no country can claim claim territory.
What is unclear is who who has jurisdiction over conflicts between nationals of different signatories. (Nationals of the same signatory are under the jurisdiction of that signatory.) For example, if US Space Mining Co comes along a picks up the processed ore from EU Space Mining Co and runs off with it EUSMCo has no venue for redress of the theft.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Rei]

"Love" is the nice way to put it. "Largess at the expense of all other solar system exploration" would be more accurate. Here's a graph. And it's always the same stupid justifications - how many times can we pretend to be excited about "revelations" that Mars was once in its past a wet place? Or that we're going to stumble into life any time soon in its perchlorate-rich, destroys-organics-on-contact regolith?

And it's not just huge amounts of money that they're wasting - they're also throwing away most of the remainder of our plutonium supply. At least there's money to start making it again, but it'll take time. Plutonium is precious, and it's needed for outer planet missions.

Show 'em, India!!

[Taco Cowboy]

lol? India can't even keep the power on. They can't clean up their garbage. They can't clean up their water supply...

You guys always look down on countries in Asia / Africa such as India or Kenya

You guys always think that countries such as India can never catch up

I have news for you...
 
While it is true India does have its hands full with the myriad problems that it is facing, India has bean growing leaps and bounds in terms of improving its own infrastructures and in its talent pool for the past few decades, and THIS TREND IS RAPIDLY ACCELERATING IN SCALE

I know, because I do have businesses in India, and I go to India several times every year

To India and to all Indians - as you guys have seen for yourself the snobbery the "Western People" are towards India, isn't it time India stands up and show the world - especially those Western snobs - what you can

Show 'em, India!!