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posted by chromas on Monday September 24 2018, @05:12PM   Printer-friendly

Russia throws doubt on joint lunar space station with U.S.: RIA

Moscow may abandon a project to build a space station in lunar orbit in partnership with U.S. space agency NASA because it does not want a "second fiddle role," a Russian official said on Saturday.

[...] [The] head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said Russia might exit the joint program and instead propose its own lunar orbit space station project.

[...] A spokesman for Roscosmos said later that Russia had no immediate plans to leave the project. "Russia has not refused to take part in the project of the lunar orbit station with the USA," Vladimir Ustimenko was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency.

FLOP-G?

Also at ABC (Associated Press).

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:44PM (7 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 24 2018, @06:44PM (#739330) Journal

    Russian space program is in the shiiter now

    That's why the US stands in line, to hitch a ride on Russian spacecraft, right?

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 24 2018, @07:38PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday September 24 2018, @07:38PM (#739358) Journal

    The U.S. does it because it's "cheap" and goes to the ISS, which the U.S. is committed to. Once the U.S. finally cuts its dependence on Russian vehicles, a large chunk of Russian space activity will evaporate.

    The U.S. continues to lead the world on space science. Look at this timeline:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Solar_System_exploration [wikipedia.org]

    Can you find Russia's last successful solar system science mission?

    Trick question. The Soviet Union successfully launched Vega 1 and Vega 2 in December 1984. The Russian Federation has had no successful Russia-led missions, and two big failures: Mars 96 and Fobos-Grunt. The U.S. has launched TESS, InSight, and the Parker Solar Probe just this year.
    --
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @07:41PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @07:41PM (#739361)

    Just cause the US system is worse, doesn't mean theirs is good, does it?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @07:57PM (3 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 24 2018, @07:57PM (#739371) Journal

      Of course not. I'm happy to see some civilian projects starting to work out. To my knowledge, none of those civilian craft are sacrificing safety in the pursuit of profit. Not yet, at least. Competition always lowers prices, and at the same time drives the developers to seek better ways of doing things. Russian space development may suck, but US development sucks worse, so thank my plate of spaghetti for people like Elon Musk.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:15PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:15PM (#739433)

        They can't sacrifice safety for profits. Well, they could, but that one safety incident will tank their reputation beyond any profit margin they were able to increase. The cost of building and launching a vehicle makes skimping on safety just plain stupid.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:25AM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 25 2018, @12:25AM (#739463) Journal

          Yes, that's obvious to you and me. But, to an MBA? It seems that maybe the space-going corporations don't hire MBA's.

          • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:58AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:58AM (#739489)

            ULA & Ariannespace do. I bet Northrup Grumman Innovation Systems (nee OrbitalATK) does too. It takes a lot of MBA to maximize shareholder value from their government contracts. After all, you don't want the engineers talking directly with the customers! They might actually deliver what the customer wants and asked for, and working to boot, without change orders. Cannot have that.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:44AM (#739507)

    I'm always reminded of this exchange from the opening of 2010

    Dr. Floyd: "How could you convince your people to allow Americans to go on the flight?"

    Moisevitch: "It won't be easy. However, I'm pretty good. A Russian craft flown by Russians... carrying a few poor Americans who need our help. That also doesn't look too bad on the front page of Pravda."

    Of course, the Musky One may soon be changing that.