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Despite Lean Space Budgets Russia Is Headed For the Moon (blastingnews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the robots-first dept.

MarkWhittington writes: Thanks to the collapse of oil prices that has ravaged the Russian economy, dependent as it is on fossil fuel exports, Russia's space program is facing draconian budget cuts... Still, the country that lost the race to the moon still has ambitious plans for Earth's closest neighbor... The Russians even have hopes of landing cosmonauts on the lunar surface by the end of the 2020s.
New evidence of subsurface ice helped fuel their interest in human moon landings, according to Science magazine, which reports that Russia is first planning five robotic missions to the moon over the next nine years. Three of these will be conducted with the European Space Agency, including one which will drill for underground samples in the new areas of the lunar surface, and the director of Russia's space agency says "the next decade will be quite busy for us."

15 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Room? by Schmorgluck · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm feeling too lazy to look it up, but is there enough room on the moon to fit the whole of Russia?

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    There's nothing like $HOME
    1. Re:Room? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Russia: 17 million sq km

      Moon: 38 million sq km

  2. Re: Sad to see how the Republicans... by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 2

    Actually, they are backing the Europa mission, which is far more useful than landing on the moon in my opinion. http://arstechnica.com/science...

  3. A statement of intent is not an actual plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Russia has big problems right now and the expense of going to the moon has nothing to do with it. Their military is getting old, their Navy needs an upgrade, and there is a battle between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Considering the Russians just announced a budget cut to their military for the first time in decades, and with no end in sight to low oil prices, this will all just remain a statement of intent but will not likely come to anything concrete.

    1. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by guacamole · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sounds like you have been out of touch with the Russian military, as the description you give corresponds to the 1990s or early 00s. Russian military has been undergoing a massive structural reform during the past 10 years, and it has been acquiring and renewing its weapons systems at a very fast pace. Just to give you an idea of the scale of the upgrades, like last year Russian air force received about 200 new 4+ or 4++ generation fighter jets. Currently they're testing, a 5th generation fighter jet and a next generation tank and IFV platform. Yes, Russian navy is the most neglected of all Russian military branches. Russia being more of a land power, has historically spent less money on its ships. But even in the Navy, there is quite a bit of new things happening. For example, the Black Sea Fleet is in the middle of receiving six new diesel submarines, three frigates, a number of corvettes and other ships. It's not a lot, but once you compare this progress to the fact that Black Sea fleet has not received any ships in the previous 20 years, this progress is obvious.

      Also observe Syria. Before Russian military got involved there, Assad's government was basically on its last ropes. After Russians came, Assad's forces with Russian help reconquered much of Aleppo, Hops, and Palmyra. The "moderate" rebels begged for cease fire, and Assad is now advancing west onto ISIS held territory.

    2. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by guacamole · · Score: 2

      PS: Oh yeah, and forget Ukraine. The Ukraine conflict is basically over. The ball is mostly on the Ukrainian side, where they have yet to confirm whether they will conform to the "Minsk" peace agreement protocols that their president already signed.

    3. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by guacamole · · Score: 2

      When I read comments like yours, I always start wonder if you're on the payroll of Lockheed Martin. I mean seriously, what exactly does an armchair expert like you know about the Russian T-50 fighter jet or the Russian T-14 tank or what exactly does anyone know about T-14 armor? Both of these projects are still in testing stages (the Indian FGFA will be based on T-50). India just agreed to continue investing in the FGFA project development to the tune of 4 billion USD.

      As for the T-14 tank, you can't really argue that it's behind the western tanks. It has a crewless fully autonomous turret, an armored crew cell, a very extensive electronic counter measures suite, and a design that's meant to accept a higher caliber gun in the future, all of which make it, at least on paper, a step or two ahead of all of western tanks.

      Here are a couple of link with beautiful images of the T-50 and T-14 just from days ago:

      http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1841727.html

      http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1834857.html?thread=180674921

    4. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by guacamole · · Score: 2

      I don't know where you get the idea about the under funding of Russian military. First of all, no military will have enough money for all it wants, ever. Look, Pentagon is getting $600 billion USD a year, which in my opinion still an absurdly big figure, and yet lots of people in the military, and a certain party are already screaming bloody murder. Russian military budget had doubled in the past 3-4 years, and now they will be getting something like a 10% cut this and the following years. No major procurement programs will be stopped.

      As for Syrian involvement, it shouldn't really matter how much that operation cost. Some political opposition figures argue that the cost was actually pretty high, while the official line is that the cost was low, and the military did not even need additional funds for Syria. But that's not the point. The point is that when called in, the Russian military went into Syria and has done its job. They changed the course of war. Assad is now advancing, while a year ago everyone was predicting he was losing.

      I am really puzzled at the armchair experts who are fuming angrily that Russia used dumb bombs (not always). And what should Russia use when bombing basically what's already a bunch of stone age ruble? Russians have plenty of precision weapons, but unlike Americans they will not use a 150K USD missile to take out every ZU-23-2 gunner or a technical.

    5. Re: A statement of intent is not an actual plan by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      In Syria we have seen that even the T-90 reactive armour holds well against a TOW

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      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    6. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by aliquis · · Score: 2

      Russian military has been under funded for sometime now, had to take a serious cut this year. And about Syria, Russia pretty much wanted to get rid of their old arsenal, old missiles, old non-smart bombs. Nothing Russia used in Syria was modern and they did not have spend any significant money on the expedition (with Assad pitching in when required).

      So why haven't superior USA spent much more and solved the issue?

      Yeah, that's right, because democracy, human rights, self-rule and dictatorships doesn't necessarily matter all that much as long as the relationship of those in rule and the US is a good one.

    7. Re:A statement of intent is not an actual plan by guacamole · · Score: 2

      Yes, exactly that one. I don't see a reason why Russia wouldn't agree to it. As far as the implementation is concerned, the party that delaying it is Ukraine, and that's not according me but according to the western diplomats who keep the Ukrainian state under a constant pressure to implement the constitutional reforms and other political they promised.

  4. The found 2 billion hidden in a cello. by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 2

    Nobody knows how it got there but it should buy a lot of rocket fuel.

  5. A large grain of SALT by Dorianny · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh sure and they are also building the Russia Alaska Superhighway, A fleet of Supercarriers. In the Real World Russia shrank the defense budget by %10 in 2015 and still Russian Reserve Fund running empty

  6. Re:Sad to see how the Republicans... by jrmcferren · · Score: 2

    BULLSHIT! Donald Trump wants to expand the space program. Trump 2016.

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    sudo mod me up
  7. Russia didn't exactly lose the race to the moon by billmarrs · · Score: 2

    Russia's Luna 2 probe got to the moon first in 1959. Luna 3 (also 1959) was the first to photograph the far side of the moon. Luna 9 soft landed on the moon and sent the first pictures from the surface back in 1966. Yes, the Apollo program put a man on the moon first (1968), but I think Russia deserves credit for many previous firsts (beyond Sputnik and Gagarin).