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Russia plans 2025 Moonbase,
2035 Mars shot
Lewis Page
The
Register
Monday Sept 3, 2007
Russia will put cosmonauts on the Moon by 2025, the head of
the country's space agency has said. A permanent manned base might
follow.
"According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned
flight to the Moon in 2025," Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov
told AFP. He said that Russia could establish a lunar "inhabited
station" between 2027 and 2032.
Manned moon visits have only ever been carried out by the USA,
with six Apollo missions landing astronauts on the Earth's satellite
from 1969 to 1972. According to NASA, the Apollo programme cost
$19.4bn. Assuming 1970 dollars, that would equate to $104bn-odd
today, which is a lot of oil and gas revenue for the Kremlin to
spend.
(Article continues below)
The US is also planning future manned trips to the moon, using
staged-rocket technology rather similar to that of the Apollo
programme, and a moonbase - and then on to Mars.
In the nearer term Roskosmos plans to complete its parts of the
International Space Station by 2015, and carry out "major
modernisation" to its Soyuz orbital-lift craft.
Russia might get around to cosmonauts on Mars after 2035, according
to Perminov. he said that difficulties with background radiation
in space would be hard to surmount, and the two or three year
length of the journey would "involve huge challenges in terms
of storage space and stress on the crew" - according to AFP.
Nothing was actually said about vodka, apparently.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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