This is real space news

[Rune]

It seems our russian friends are finally getting serious again about this space business. As the yanks say, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. Well, this time, they are not announcing an impossible-to-fund grandiose aspiration nobody with a sane mind can believe they will actually attempt, never mind succeed, they are actually just announcing the bucks:

Russia Boosting Space Budget To Surpass China, Equal Europe

The Russian government’s decision to increase Russia’s space budget will permit Russia to surpass China and reach spending parity with the 20-nation European Space Agency (ESA), the head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said.

That is the best news I have seen lately regarding space. At a time when most of the industrialized world save China seemed to be backing away from space (look at NASA's budget these last five years if you don't believe me), it seems the Russians are determined to reverse the direction of their space program to make it once again the envy of the world. Thing look good for the new launch site, and for them actually developing new stuff like the Angara family and the talked-to-death Soyuz replacement.

Rune. Never mind the speeches, go look at the actual budgets.

[Nuke]

russians take their space stuff seriously.

[The Jedi Master]

Russian flag on Mars? Hmmm...

That is, if this doesn't completely screw their economy...

[Themohawkninja]

Well... as long as they have a bit more success than the N-1, all the power to them.

I would rather see a joint NASA, ESA mission to Mars before individual countries try it for themselves. That's just me though.

[DerekL1963]

It seems our russian friends are finally getting serious again about this space business. As the yanks say, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. Well, this time, they are not announcing an impossible-to-fund grandiose aspiration nobody with a sane mind can believe they will actually attempt, never mind succeed, they are actually just announcing the bucks

Sure, they're announcing the bucks - but over the last twenty odd years they've announced all manner of things (not all of them impossible to fund/grandiose), but they've followed up on very dang few of them. Let's wait until they actually start spending the bucks (on something other than dachas for the Leadership) before counting those chickens.

[jwenting]

at least they're announcing an increase in spending rather than happily killing their budgets and their space program with it.

As long as more of the increase than the cost of inflation actually ends up where it belongs, there won't be a Russian version of the killing of the US space program.

[Nibb31]

They've been announcing this kind of stuff for decades. I'm not holding my breath.

[GJames]

Even if the Russians don't take full advantage of the funding it is likely that ESA will get a boost; A lot of the bigger ESA missions have been in cooperation with Roscocmos, I seem to remember... Especially that ExoMars rover whose future was called into doubt, hopefully that will be able to continue.

[NASAFanboy]

Well... as long as they have a bit more success than the N-1, all the power to them.

I would rather see a joint NASA, ESA mission to Mars before individual countries try it for themselves. That's just me though.

Meh, I prefer individual countries, but if they want international cooperation, so be it. It'll get a base established faster with manned missions to Jupiter....

While it does seem nice, Russia has been announcing stuff like this for decades. "We want to go to the moon/Venus/Mars/blah blah blah" and so on, but they have never gotten there. But ESA could get a nice boost, and start sending probes to the INTERESTING parts, like Europa.

It may spark a second space race, who knows? With the Western/Russians versing the Chinise.

[Rune]

Yes, I know the russkies are fond of press releases (what was the last one about, the lunar orbit station? Or was it the ion-powered Mars manned ship?). But this is the first one I hear that talks about funding... and it only talks about funding. That amazed me, frankly.

Rune. It also gives Vostochny a chance to get finished.

[Kryten]

It may spark a second space race, who knows? With the Western/Russians versing the Chinise.

This is the same Russian space program that gave China a piggyback payload slot to Mars orbit, sold them flight-ready spacesuits, gave the APAS docking system design to, trained their first batch of astronauts....

I could go on like that for a while. The only race they have with China is racing for their cash, and there's no real indication of changes to that.