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Russian Space Agency Misused $1.8 Billion, May Be Replaced
An anonymous reader writes: After a pair of high profile launch failures in the past few months, Russian space agency Roscosmos is making headlines again: this time for corruption. A public spending watchdog reported that the organization had misused 92 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in 2014 alone. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said their space efforts have been undermined by rampant corruption. "We have uncovered acts of fraud, abuse of authority (and) document forgery. With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate." He also said Roscosmos is to be "abolished," and replaced by a state corporation of the same name by the end of the year. "In its new, corporate identity, Roscosmos will be responsible not only for setting mission goals but managing wages for space industry workers and modernizing production facilities."
Not unlike the US, right? Oh, You call it lobbying...same.
Was probably that they were bribing the wrong people, not the corruption itself.
So, let me get this straight: your public-sector space program is a fucked-up labyrinth of corruption, fraud, and mismanagement.
You propose to replace it with a sole-source, crony capitalist, 'state corporation', to take advantage of the important synergies between the public sector's capabilities in corruption and mediocrity and the private sector's sophistication in financial and organizational malfeasance?
Christ, guys, if you keep this up I'll start feeling good about US mil/aero procurement practices by comparison...
You can argue about the relative virtues of public sector and private sector agents for various purposes; but there is no lower form of life than the crony capitalist entity when it comes to corruption.
Not like it doesn't happen ANY country. You can call it WHATEVER you like!
"At least, the Russian government is doing something about it."
No, no they're not. It's just being swept underneath a bigger rug. A rug also filled with many vermin who will enact the same corruption as before, but hide it more betterly. At least in the US our media outlets get to cover this kind of thing to keep them honest and transparent. In Russia, the media is in on the caper. 100% true facts, kid. Get a clue next time you chime into a topic. I'll bet on NASA over the Kosmonuts on EVERY occasion. BOOM!!1! That JUST HAPPENED! (only a simulation, had another Russian Space Junk Probe blown up we'd have funny pix on Instagrab already, dingus.)
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Bah, compared to Bernie Madoff this is peanuts.
See , with Capitalism and free markets, even the crimes are bigger.
The media in the USA is the most dishonest I've seen.
Then you haven't seen many medias. I'll just note that there was a very relevant society who once named their chief propaganda outlet, "Truth" which just happens to be "Pravda" in anglicized Russian.