Russia's Space Agency Plans To Build Own Orbital Station

[Purveyor]

MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will propose to the government the construction of a low-orbit space station to support future exploration of the Moon and Mars, an agency official said Thursday.

"We will soon propose to our government a project to construct a low-orbit complex, which could serve as a foundation for the implementation of the lunar program and later on - the Mars program," Alexei Krasnov, director of manned flight programs at Roscosmos, told a news conference in Moscow.

Krasnov said that Russia, as well as other countries, "is looking at the Moon in a mid-term perspective, and would want not only to go there and come back, but to establish a lunar base, which would allow us to start exploring Mars in the future."

"These are our intentions, but we are working hard to ensure that these plans get adequate financial and legislative support from the government," the official said.

MORE...

RIA NOVOSTI: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090129/119862914.html

[cobalt1999]

1. "we are working hard to ensure that these plans get adequate financial and legislative support"

Good luck with that.

Even the U.S. economy in the best of times would be hard pressed to be able to fund all of that alone. There is a good reason for the international space station. It's not because we wanted to share, we had no choice.

What's a barrel of oil going for now? $45?

Good luck to them.