Posted on 08/31/2007 3:09:55 PM PDT by blam
Russia enters 'space race' to build moon base
By Graeme Baker
Last Updated: 5:57pm BST 31/08/2007
Russia has revived another Cold War rivalry by entering a new “space race” with America to build a permanent base on the Moon.
The moon from Moscow's Novodevichy Monastery
Anatoly Perminov, the head of the space agency Roskosmos, said Russia would organise a manned lunar mission by 2025 and would be ready to build an “inhabited station” between 2027 and 2032.
From there, cosmonauts could strike out on a long-planned mission to Mars as early as 2035. “According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025,” said Mr Perminov, adding that Mars remained a long-term ambition for Russia.
Mr Perminov also said that Roskmosmos intended to complete its section of the International Space Station by 2015 so that the ISS “becomes a fully-fledged space research centre”, while “major modernisation” of its Soyuz spacecraft would also be completed.
President George W. Bush in 2004 outlined plans for America, which landed the first men on the moon in 1968, to return by 2020 and use the mission as a stepping stone to Mars.
A new spacecraft design and manned lunar base modules formed part of the plan.
Launching a Mars mission from the Moon would remove the biggest cost factor of space travel – breaking out of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Russia’s announcement comes as it attempts to revive Cold War prestige on the back of a buoyant economy fueled by booming energy prices.
Among its aims is to secure its claim to Arctic territory - and the natural resources found beneath the sea bed.
This month, President Vladimir Putin revived Russian daily long-range bomber patrols near Nato airspace, in part to respond to American plans to build a missile defence shield in the former Soviet territories of the Czech Republic and Poland.
Mr Putin had previously said that Russia could once again point nuclear missiles at European cities to counter the shield’s strategic threat, and “suspended” its adherence to a treaty limiting the deployment of military forces on European soil.
Russia is already organising a simulated manned mission to Mars, by placing six volunteers in a sealed capsule on Earth for up to two years to study the effects.
The European Space Agency has expressed an interest in contributing to the project, including research and financial support.
However, Mr Perminov admitted that many difficulties linked to the a real Mars expedition remained unresolved, not least designing and building appropriate equipment.
“Current spacecraft do not provide the protection needed for the crew to survive and return to Earth,” he said.
Those Russians sure are feeling insecure these days.
But we planted our flag there first...(in reference to their lame claim of the north pole area by dropping a flag from a sub under the ice)
We need to saddle up.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
As long as they don’t mess with Saturn. I’ve got dibs on that first.
We are and will continue to lead.
Just leave Europa alone.
Hey Russia - You have to get people there first.
We should have built and occupied a small lunar base and research station years ago.
They are staking their claim to the moon because they want to corner the market on He3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_supplies
Well I hope their “Moon Lander” has a better design than their Submarines.
So, what are they going to do? Stack up the rusting remains of their past failures in bids for glory and then climb to the moon?
... even as we make these posts, a Russian sub is silently
headed towards the moon, assisted by a Russian asteroid
breaker. The plan, as we’ve learned, is to deposit a small
Russian flag on the surface of the moon....
Someone will beat us at our own game. We have no motivation at this point to do anything about outer space. The richest tycoons such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and others are not interested investing in private outer space travel.
The US should embrace competition and new technologies. Both will keep us at the top of our game.
Sputnik was a good wake-up call
I remember the 'shock' well.
This kind of thing has been going on for decades. Must be dozens, not counting Antarctic camps.
Wrong guess, try again.
July 20, 1969.
The same goes for moon missions.
Having grown up reading Heinlein, I was always sort of embarassed that we did nothing after the Moon Shot. I have always wondered why.
Most of these manned NASA Missions accomplish little, scientifically speaking with their laughable "Science Fair" type experiments. They are expensive rides to nowhere in particular.
Now if we had a lunar base ......
Gonna be a lot of dead Russkis on the moon. If they even get there. There might be some there already, and I’m pretty sure there are quite a few in earth orbit, if they haven’t burned up. Late 50’s-early 60’s was a bad time to be a cosmonaut.
Just the other day I read an article here at FR about one of the original “lightsaber” props from Star Wars being sent up on the next shuttle.
I’m OK with space tourists who are trained and paying but a movie prop is taking it too far.
Finder’s keeper’s
The problem right now is that neither side has the political or national will to actually go through with this program. If we’re not careful we’re going to end up with another ISS albatross. What we need to do is be wary of the Chinese coming up the middle to take the checkered flag.
And yet private space travel is catching on through men like Robert Bigelow and Sir Richard Branson.
NASA is on life support with its 40 year old space bus. If other nations feel the need to fleece their taxpayers for flights that can be done by private industry cheaper and more efficiently, let them. But the government of these US should not follow suit
Journalists are so damn lazy these days... I remember this date, because it was very close to my birthday. I was a little boy sitting with my dad, watching the thing..
The owners of the universe are not at all concerned that these hobbyists will siphon off a detectable portion of the global taxable income. True space development will follow withdrawal from the Treaty, which isn't happening.
I don't know. If you had told me when I was watching Neal Armstrong step on to the lunar surface that we send missions there until 1973 and after that by 2007 we would not have returned even once, I'd have asked what you were smoking.
We live in a nation whose media scorns heroes. When is the last time you saw a national story on the valor of one of our soldiers? The same media looks for phantom evils in the actions of our government and industry. The focus of today's media, news and entertainment are the so called victims. Not of crime or terror, but of their own gov't and business.
A new mission to Space will require a clarion call to rally America behind the heroes who wll plan, build, and carrry out the mission. If JFK had one skill it was to push the right rhetorical button and catch the people's imagination to do something great. Who will do that now?
we first orbited men around the Moon in 1968
In 1959 the US Army completed a plan for a manned military outpost on the moon. The Horizon lunar outpost was said to be necessary to protect United States interests on the moon; to conduct moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, to act as a communications relay, and to serve as a base for exploration of the moon. The permanent outpost would cost $6 billion and become operational in December 1966 with 12 soldiers.
In designing the base, Wernher von Braun appointed Heinz Koelle to head the project team at Redstone Arsenal. Spacecraft components would be lofted in 147 Saturn C-I and C-II booster launches, and then assembled in low earth orbit at an austere spent-tank space station. A Lunar landing and return vehicle would shuttle up to sixteen astronauts at a time to the base and back. Construction would begin in April 1965 and the base was to become operational by December 1966 at Sinus Aestuum or Mare Imbrium. The base would be defended against Russian overland attack by man-fired weapons - unguided Davy Crockett rockets with low-yield nuclear warheads, and conventional claymore mines modified to puncture pressure suits.
The US Air Force Lunex project was begun in 1958. The final lunar expedition plan of 1961 was for a 21-airman underground Air Force base on the moon by 1968 at a total cost of $ 7.5 billion.
In May 1961, just as Kennedy had decided that NASA should put an American on the moon, the US Air Force released a secret report, summarizing the result of years of planning to place a military base on the moon by 1968. However this schedule was extremely over-optimistic. First lunar landing was by the end of 1967, but the booster and lunar landing vehicles planned were considerably more advanced than those used for Apollo, which only achieved the same goal by 1969 a three times the estimated cost of Lunex. In hindsight it is apparent that increasing Air Force preoccupation with the Viet Nam War in the same period would have resulted in the program being stretched and perhaps eventually cancelled (as with all other Air Force manned space projects).
Many of the techniques for Project Lunex reappear in Korolev's early L3 lunar expedition plans. These include the selection of base sites by automated probes; the planting of homing transponders on the lunar surface for precision landing of manned landers and cargo craft; and methods of direct lunar landing. The Air Force admitted that their intelligence indicated that the Soviet Union had no plans to go to the moon - so Lunex was not a race against the Russians, but rather a plan to achieve the 'strategic high ground'.
The N1 draft project of 1962 spoke of 'establishment of a lunar base and regular traffic between the earth and the moon'. Korolev raised the matter informally at tea with Chief Designer of rocket complexes Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin, head of GSKB SpetsMash (State Union Design Bureau of Special Machine-Building). Barmin was interested in pursuing the subject, but how could such a base be placed on the moon. 'You just design the base', Korolev assured him, 'and I'll figure out how to get it there'. The project ran 12 years and was known to SpetsMash as the 'Long-term Lunar Base' (DLB) and referred to jokingly by detractors as 'Barminograd'. It would have put a semi-permanent nine-man base on the moon by 1975.
Consideration was given to using the same elements in expeditions to other planets. Under the DLB studies SpetsMash defined purposes of the base, the principles of its construction, phases of its deployment and composition of its scientific and support equipment. The enthusiasts that worked on the project were naturally known as 'lunatics'.
Beginning in 2000, Chinese scientists began discussing preliminary work on a Chinese manned lunar base. Although not funded, it remains a long-term objective of the Chinese space program for the second quarter of the 21st Century.
Beyond the initial Project 921 programs for development of a manned earth orbit capability, Chinese scientists began talking during the course of 2000 of more ambitious plans for a lunar base. At Expo 2000 at Hanover the centre piece of the Chinese pavilion was a display of two Chinese astronauts planting the flag of the People's Republic on the lunar surface. On October 4, 2000 Associated Press reported that Zhuang Fenggan, vice chairman of the China Association of Sciences, declared that one day the Chinese would create a permanent lunar base with the intent of mining the lunar soil for Helium-3 (to fuel nuclear fusion plants on Earth). On October 13, 2000, Xinhua News Agency reported a more definite timetable. These seemed to be the dreams of academics rather than a definite funded program, but at least indicated the expected course of development during the 21st ('Chinese') Century:
The problem is to identify the modern heroes. Professional sports furnished heroes for a while, but their image is failing lately. Dot.com industry furnished heroes for a while, but they didn't hold up long. The heroes appear to be politicians, some politicians. Yet, what have these heroes done? Hillary!08? Obama? Diana? Bono?
Uranus goes to the Klingons of course.
heh heh..I just love when the Russkies pour more money into nonsense like this, rather than building their country into a major power.
Dragnet, I agree with you 100%. I’ve thought the same as you for years. What a waste, we gave away our lead and if the Russians do this it’ll hurt us militarily. All we’ve got to show for getting to the moon first when we did is three trillion in welfare programs and a fleet of used up shuttles. If we would have stayed on track could you imagine what we could have achieved for mankind?
Don't worry, let them eat moon dust. It won't affect us militarily in the least. We can dispatch any Lunar target without having a Lunar base ourselves.
It's a shame when I think of the discoveries, and research...We could have put a lunar based observatory at the site, developed solar power on the surface etc etc. We accomplished so little with so much effort.
But first, Russia plans to reintegrate the former SSRs, sell boatloads of arms to various Latin American dictators, sell nukes and missiles to Iran, oppose the US everywhere in the world...
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