Russia plans 2015 moon mission
The moon, seen on Dec. 28, 2012. / Starry Night Software
Moscow The Russian Space Agency says it will send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2015 from a new launch pad in the country's Far East.
Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday that the rocket booster would deliver a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) space exploration vehicle with up to 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of scientific equipment that would search for water and take soil samples.
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Popovkin said the moon-bound spacecraft would be launched from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome. President Vladimir Putin has vowed to invest $1 billion in building this launch pad in the Amur Region not far from the Chinese border. Russia's last and only moon mission was accomplished in 1973.
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Read about the Luna 16 mission made over 40 years ago in 1970.
The feat was extremely impressive and done in an era with very crude computers.
Cold War hysteria and propaganda kept this achievement shrouded in secrecy. Up to recently, the US government withheld from publicly admitting that the Russian achieved this marvelous feat decades ago.
Some wonder why the Russians want to return to the Moon, while the USA has aspirations to go to Mars.
At this time, Martian exploration is currently done rather well without astronauts by the JPL division, the unmanned agency of NASA.
The unmanned JPL division of NASA in Los Angeles, California has traditionally yielded far more data at a fraction of the cost compared against the Manned Spacecraft Program headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Russian exploration of the Moon is considered far a more sensible initiative considering the same side of the moon always faces the Earth and makes a mission communication link between Earth and Moon faster and continuous.
With current economic distress in the USA, manned missions to Mars seem highly unlikely and insupportable. The dividends returning from the ISS investment don't appear to be coming in fast enough to generate any enthusiasm for supporting Martian occupation missions.
This writer adds that solving environmental problems for a few people living in space compared to all the rest living on Earth, isn't feasible or sensible, given the fact that the high technology and jobs created seem to be exported and of little benefit for US citizens left paying for the research and development of the technologies.
(Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein..)