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Russian Moon Landing May Take As Many As Six Launches (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Russia has made no secret of its desire to land cosmonauts on the lunar surface sometime in the late 2020s. As the United States, at least for the current administration, has decided to bypass the moon in favor of Mars, Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered at the hands of NASA when it lost the 1960s race to the moon with the landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. However, a story in TASS suggests that a Russian moon landing effort would be complex, requiring up to six launches of its Angara rocket.
Apparently space travel was much easier back then.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
They're talking about 2029 as the earliest launch date with a flyby perhaps a year earlier. All of this, of course, depends on funding. Which doesn't seem like such a bright spot:
n September, Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos announced that it will send a lander, Luna 25, to the Moon's south pole in 2024. After touchdown, the lander will investigate the lunar surface for future lunar bases. The Luna 25 mission was initially proposed in 1997 and has since suffered a number of delays, but it seems that with Europe's aid the mission could finally get the jump-start it needs. Construction of the spacecraft has already begun.
So, they are trying to send an unmanned probe to the moon that was supposed to be launched 18 years ago in another nine years. And you thought NASA has budget problems.
And they want to send a whole metric shit ton of equipment - six booster loads full. From a scientific point of view it sounds great. But it doesn't sound particularly realistic.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
FTSummary: Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered at the hands of NASA when it lost the 1960s race to the moon with the landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.
Uhm, "lost" the space race?
Sputnik? Remember?
Oh, and Russia also landed a craft on, and beamed back images from, the surface of Venus. They were first. In fact, and I expect to be corrected, I don't recall the US ever landing a probe on Venus that did anything other than send back a few blips of telemetry readings before dissolving in the Venusian atmosphere.
"Russia could move to wipe out the humiliation it suffered" First to put something in orbit, first man in space, they landed robotic rovers on the moon around the same time we were there. I'm not trying to dismiss the amazing Apollo program but this is very biased nonsense. As an American the Russians should be proud of their space program. No humiliation.
6 launches isn't complex. We do twice that many flights to ISS every year. In total, we've done over 160 flights to ISS, with Russia doing over half of those.
Anyway, I bet they can do it in 4 Angara launches. Russia is super experienced with in-space rendezvous, autonomous docking, and even more advanced things like propellant transfer (which they do regularly at ISS). 4 or even 6 launches would be no problem.
They'll save a ridiculous amount of money by not building a megarocket like we insist on.
But I agree with the skeptical posters here. Russia always talks about these sorts of things and never does them (not that we're much better). I think it's code-word for "if oil gets over $150/barrel and stays there, then we can do this."
A more complex payload can now reach the moon without the many compromise of the past efforts as seen on television. :)
A later permanent lunar ability would then be less tricky allowing for the wonders of the ultimate high ground to be explored and science shared.
Russian has the very complex metallurgy, science, support, academics, computer applications to ensure all such projects will work.
Lets hope the needed projects get the full funding soon
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Patriotism is a disease that makes a moron believe (s)he's better than someone else because (s)he's better than someone else because they were squeezed from a vagina that either already was a citizen of a country or squeezed from it in said country.
Unless you're ass was the one planted in the pod which landed on the moon, you're the asshole who thinks Armstrong said "On small step for the United States". A man landed and walked on the moon and you make this about national boundaries? This is about what we can accomplish as human beings if we set our minds to it. Using something that barely counts as a computer and communications systems which worked nearly by accident, we sent humans riding on an enormous bomb into space and managed to actually slow them down enough to land on the surface of the moon.
This was a victory for all of the world... not just the U.S. and it sure as hell wasn't a loss for the Soviet Union. The were able to see that their fellow man stood on the surface of the moon and be proud of what we can all accomplish and to know that if we reach for the stars... one day we might just reach them.
Screw your pathetic patriotic nonsense... every day I come here and read Slashdot and see people from all over the world (including Russia and China) talk about popular science together as a common species. I visit sites where people from around the world work to further medicine and we don't consider patents or national boundaries, we consider illnesses. We work together to design new algorithms for pattern detection within ultrasound images to detect anomalies.
I visit other sites where we discuss the mysteries of the Universe and generally find that we like those mysteries. Sometimes we wonder would we like it so much if they weren't mysteries. We speak as humans with no regards for national boundaries and who was squeezed from a vagina in a given place.
Patriotism is for fools. Nationalism is for fools. There is only one reason for national boundaries and that's to have some order to managerial tasks like deciding who should pay for which roads to be built.
I was born an American... when I learned that patriotism is a hoax, I decided to be something far greater... a human instead. My life has been far more fulfilling since.
That said... as someone born in New York, I do take an irrational pride in New York pizza and bagels... it's not a competition, it's an observation... we do it better.
They have six rockets, but only one of them is loaded.
You are welcome on my lawn.
A moon base would be by far the biggest boondoggle in the history of this nation: Trillions of dollars sunk into a make-work social program for space nutters.
Come on, surely you can do better than that. The bank bailouts, the wars knowingly started on false premises, the wars started on "regime change" ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower didn't expect to ever return to Europe. And half of them died in the first couple of years, in the horrible wilderness called "Massachusetts".
Everybody who goes to Mars will die. (Some quickly, some slowly, some from old age.... maybe even some who come back to Earth.) EVERYBODY dies. Many pioneers died along the Oregon Trail, or heading to California. Exploration isn't safe, but staying home in bed doesn't protect you from dying.
"As the United States, at least for the current administration, has decided to bypass the moon in favor of Mars"
It's a way of kicking the can so far down the road that you can't even find the can.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you