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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."
Knowing what things look like in Russia, one has to wonder whether this is has some elements of politics as well - is one of the Russian oligarchs trying to take control of the space industry and get more money into their pockets by replacing the existing organization with one tied to themselves? Knowing how rampant corruption runs in Russia, announcing it so dramatically at this point in time might have ulterior motives...
When Putin charges someone with corruption, it's usually because they control government expenditures and are unwilling to give him his usual kickback. So, it looks like he's going to create a new space agency and install an ally to take advantage of the inherent business opportunities provided by access to a budget of over $5 billion.
Read more about Putin's kleptocracy here:
http://www.reuters.com/investi...
That's true - olympic medals are only required to contain a minimum of 6 grams of gold, and at least 92% silver. Even still, it's a an incredible price
$9.4 billion for a 28 mile road. And we're not talking through an urban area, just simple new constuction. 4 lines. 28 miles. 45000 meters long with an actual driving width of... oh, let's say 3,5 meters per lane? Not sure what's typical. So about 157500 square meters. $60k per square meter. I mean, seriously, just think about that. You could stack $1000 Louie Vitton handbags 5 layers deep across the whole road for that money. $9.4 billion for 28 miles? You could pay Russians $3 an hour to carry passengers on their shoulder at 3 miles per hour and carry 50 thousand passengers per day every day and it wouldn't cost as much as the road for nearly 20 years.
POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
Bollocks
The road includes a railway line (strange that wasn't mentioned) and a shit load of bridges
The original source is a political attack video so anything like Louie Vitton handbags is just shit
Fuck, they are making John Pilger look unbiased!
(John Pilger is Micheal Moore on steroids)
The total lack of information on the railway and the terrain means any information on the price must also be suspect (in other words - Total Bullshit)