posted by
janrinok
on Wednesday September 24 2014, @09:43PM
from the not-sure-when-they're-bringing-him-back dept.
from the not-sure-when-they're-bringing-him-back dept.
One giant leap for mankind, again. Russia’s space agency said Tuesday it will launch a “full-scale” exploration of the Moon as part of a long-term mission to get a human being on the lunar surface for the first time in decades.
The head of Roscomsos, Oleg Ostapenko, said that designs were already underway for a manned spacecraft that he estimated could reach the moon by the end of the next decade. “By that time, based on the results of lunar surface exploration by unmanned space probes, we will designate [the] most promising places for lunar expeditions and lunar bases,” Ostapenko said, according to a translation ( http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/750900 ) by Russian state-owned news agency ITAR-TASS.
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Russia Says It’s Putting A Man on the Moon… By 2030.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:02PM
The hard question has always been "when is he coming back, in walking shape"?
(Score: 2) by metamonkey on Thursday September 25 2014, @02:37PM
There will be nothing to come back to. [youtube.com]
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:05PM
they won't just set foot and then run out of money. they'll use their experience with space stations to cobble together a system that can move significant amounts of material to lunar orbit, probably at a fraction of the cost of the NASA effort
Russian rocket engineers are the best in the world
also, i guess since USAF won't be buying rocket motors from Russia anymore they gotta do something with them
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/01/spacex-unitedlaunchalliance-idUSL3N0NN14S20140501 [reuters.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:40PM
Course they will not have that sweet USA money rolling in either to fund it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25 2014, @03:26AM
US dollars don't make Russian spacecraft
(Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Thursday September 25 2014, @04:36AM
Well.... not exactly. How do you think the USA has been getting astronauts to the ISS since the shuttle retired? Why do you think they want SpaceX and Boeing to get a hurry on and make a man rated launcher / capsule?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by romanr on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:34PM
I wonder, if USA (SpaceX and others) will be sooner on Mars than Russia on the Moon. My bet would be SpaceX ... Elon Musk doesn't have bureaucratic corrupted incompetent system under his command.
(Score: 5, Funny) by tempest on Wednesday September 24 2014, @10:37PM
No geckos could be reached for comment.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gman003 on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:01PM
Russia has an overall poor record with introducing new rockets. Everything they've done successfully was either Soyuz or Proton. Both are far too small for a manned lunar mission.
There's also the Zenit rocket, run by a consortium of Russian, American, Ukrainian and Norwegian companies. Something tells me that isn't going so well lately, and in any case they didn't have nearly the capacity for a lunar mission either.
Their proposed Angara rocket also lacks the power for a lunar mission. If you really stretched it, you could probably build something using RD-0120 engines from the old Energia/Buran program. Maybe - they were already using four of them, plus boosters, to get the Buran flying. Using a large number of engines has historically worked poorly - as shown by the N-1 disasters.
So they're going to develop a new rocket, plus a new vehicle, and get to the moon in 16 years. That's not impossible - we went from Mercury to Apollo in less time - but it means they have to be pretty serious about this. Given the Putin administration's penchant for expensive, poor-showing vanity projects, like the Sochi Olympics, and given their simultaneous demand for military buildup, I doubt they will be able to commit to this in the way they will need to.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday September 25 2014, @02:25AM
If you don't take the One Rocket approach like NASA did, you can launch pieces on separate rockets, assemble in orbit, then launch your main transit booster.
We only did it the way we did it because the technology for construction in space wasn't likely to be ready in time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:05PM
Putin's Putin' a man on the Moon?
And last year it was 2020,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/rbth/technology/9183270/Russia-moon-mission.html [telegraph.co.uk]
But 13 years ago, it was going to be Mars by 2020,
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=5733 [shortnews.com]
There is a saying that goes "Seeing is believing". I think it applies here.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday September 25 2014, @12:57AM
It's just a reply Haka after the US's announcement a few days ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25 2014, @01:49AM
I will say the same comments about US space program these days. They have the same track record as Putin. Make announcement, and never deliver. Next man on the Moon will most likely be Chinese.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:06PM
As I recall, in Soviet times, the space program could not build a large enough rocket that could lift off without blowing up [wikipedia.org]. Undoubtedly, the Russians can do it now but why bother? The best solution is to get to put a space station in orbit, using existing vehicles to get the pieces of the lunar orbiter and lander there as well as the fuel, put it together in orbit, and then launch. Then repeat as desired.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Thursday September 25 2014, @12:20AM
Soyuz and Proton are large enough. The US has already done a study [parabolicarc.com] which indicates that using a similar rocket to the Proton, the Delta IV Heavy, could be used for manned missions to the Moon.
It's a myth that one needs to use large, poorly utilized rockets in order to fly people to the Moon.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday September 25 2014, @01:47AM
I stand corrected. But I think a space station is more cool.... and cheaper in the long run if there is going to be a permanent presence, something which I suspect the Russians are looking it doing.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Thursday September 25 2014, @02:04AM
Wikipedia says Delta IV Heavy can lift about 14t to GTO, while Proton-M can only lift about 6t to GTO. That's not particularly "similar" IMO (perhaps there's a heavier version of Proton I missed?), so it's not at all obvious that Proton is feasible for such missions.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday September 25 2014, @02:30AM
The mass difference is less pronounced for LEO (21 mt to 29 mt). Assemble stuff in LEO and then launch it to the Moon.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 25 2014, @01:03AM
Last time [wikipedia.org], it didn't go too well for the space station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by istartedi on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:22PM
The real irony will come when the "commies" we defeated in the race start mining the Moon. Heck, just the novelty of moon rocks alone at this point could help finance the program. Imagine when they have a presence and if they find crystals. Holy crap. How much would some New Age person with more dollars than sense pay for a genuine Moon Crystal?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Thursday September 25 2014, @09:05AM
Honestly, I would like having one sitting on my Desktop... (Not the person, the crystal!)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:44PM
"That's one small step..." - Neil Armstrong, 1969.
So, 45 years later and they need twice as long when the Indians can get a probe to Mars on their first attempt? Did they spend the intervening time producing lots of red tape instead of spacecraft or something?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Thursday September 25 2014, @12:53AM
"We choose to go to the Moon..." - John F. Kennedy, 1961.
Our problem is we chose not to go back, or this would be a non-issue.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Username on Thursday September 25 2014, @01:09AM
Is Moon a providence in the Ukraine?
(Score: 3, Funny) by clone141166 on Thursday September 25 2014, @03:08AM
Okay, who let Putin play Kerbal Space Program...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25 2014, @06:58PM
If we can put a man on the moon,then we can put a soviet man on the moon... And someday,we can put all soviets on the moon!