Russia Proposes Sending Team to Mars MOSCOW –– (AP) Russian space officials proposed an ambitious project on Friday to send a six-person team to Mars by the year 2015, a trip that would mark a milestone in space travel and international space cooperation. Russia's space program hopes to work closely with the American agency NASA and the European Space Agency to build two spaceships capable of transporting the crew to Mars, supporting them on the planet for up to two months and safely bringing them home, said Nikolai Anfimov, head of the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building. The roughly 440-day trip is expected to cost about $20 billion, with Russia suggesting it would contribute 30 percent. "It must be an international project," said Vitaly Semyonov, head of the Mars project at the M.V. Keldysha Space Research Center. "No one country could cope alone with this task." Russian space officials said they are receiving encouraging signs of interest from NASA and European counterparts. But NASA spokeswoman Delores Beasley said Friday that the Russians have not submitted any formal plan and that the agency would not comment on the proposed trip before then. Because of demands from Congress to scale back costs, human travel to Mars has not been on NASA's radar recently. Landing humans on Mars has long been a dream of Russian space scientists. But even in the heyday of the Soviet space program, when Moscow reported success after success, its attempts to reach the Red Planet were marked by failure. Soviet scientists began whispering about a "Mars curse." The Soviet Union kicked off Mars exploration in 1960 by launching two unmanned spacecraft four days apart, but both failed even to make it as far as Earth's orbit. One resulted in an engine explosion that scattered debris and contamination over the Baikonur launch pad in one of the worst accidents in Soviet space history. That was followed by repeated attempts and often repeated disappointment. The bad luck for Russia continued on Nov. 16, 1996, when the Russians launched an ambitious $300 million spacecraft, Mars 96, which they hoped would prove to the world that despite their economic struggles after the Soviet breakup, they could still run a first-rate space program. Mars 96 suffered an engine failure just after launch and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. click for complete article
I hope Russia can become a Super Power again. That'd be awesome. Why, I don't know. However the US needs a rival(not nescessarily an enemy).
I give the Russians one thing THEY JUST DO IT Put a man up in space for a year. . .BOOM it's done We worry about stupid **** like,. . . SAFETY!!! Russians are like. .. f*ck it ..sh*t happens Send up another one. . . hell they sending a backstreet boy into out of space I'm sure plenty of us wanted to do that . . . .well. . . not with a rocket. . just a foot and a swift kick I truly do amire their moxy . . . . hope they do well Rocket River
Russia really needs some help with their decision making process. Feed/heat the poor, dismantle our nuclear weapons and fight crime or spend 6 billion to go to Mars? I am all for space exploration, I am very fascinated with it, but Russia is in no position to go to Mars. They have some great scientist and they are the leaders in prolonged space flights so they would be very valuable on international project. But I don't understand how they can spend money on it when they are lacking in other vital areas. I think I just read that Russia is getting 20 billion from Europe/US to help them dismantle their nuclear stockpile. Also isn't Russia responsible for a lot of the delays on the ISS? Why would things be any different on this project?
my first thought when reading this thread was, "great! good for them! hopefully they can spur us back into some real exploration." but then i started thinking about the things you were thinking about sonny...and i have to say I agree. it's ultimately not my place to second-guess them..i mean, it's their money. it's their government. But if I were in the shoes of the average working class Russian Joe (or Ivan!) I think I might be thinking, "you know...we have some major fish to fry here before we start sending people to Mars!"
Thats cool. By 2015 I someone has succeded in at least sending a pretty good robot or something up there. I know sometime ago some scientist predicted that bacterial forms of life do probably exists in the frozen core of Mars (much like our Antarica). I also wanna know whats up with that face thingy.
Well, the same could be said about the US and every other country on the planet. I have a similar reaction when I see (of all things) well-manicured grass -- as on a polo or golf course. The grass is very nice and all, but the money spent on nice grass could have gone to things a thousand times more useful and socially responsible. But, if the poor will always be with us, when will we ever get the opportunity to send someone to Mars? In truth, even if a trip to Mars is largely symbolic, it would probably also mean jobs for thousands of workers, not to mention the increased business, technological advance, training and economic bustle that would accompany the program.
I heard they are going to tax Vodka heavily to attain the funds necessary for this project. (Just kidding all my alcoholic friends)
If this program really got going (a big if), the trip would be very expensive of course but in the end it would more than pay for itself with technology advances and the jobs it would create especially for Russia. The Apollo mission created jobs and industries for approx. 250,000 people. Besides all that logical stuff it would be so bad arse to watch that happen-- it would captivate the world.
