We are coming to the Moon FOREVER

By Will Stewart In Moscow 11 April 2014 

The West fears Russia is poised to invade Ukraine, but it seems the Kremlin has a bigger conquest in its sights - the Moon. Moscow today set out plans to conquer and colonise space, including a permanent manned moon base.  Deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin said: 'We are coming to the moon forever.'  His comments came as President Vladimir Putin toured the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Moscow. On Saturday, Russia celebrates Cosmonaut Day marking Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight into space on April 12, 1961.

In an article in the government's own newspaper headlined 'Russian Space', he spoke of targeting Mars and other 'space objects' as future priorities.  'Flights to Mars and asteroids in our view do not contradict exploration of the moon, but in many senses imply this process.'  He wrote of 'colonisation of the moon and near-moon space'.

In the next 50 years, manned flights are unlikely beyond 'the space between Venus and Mars'.  But 'it is quite possible to speak about exploration of Mars, flights to asteroids and flights to Mars'......To Read More....  

 

My Take - Horsepucky! This is a nation that is still being run by the same incompetent leadership that couldn't figure out that women wear more underwear than men when it was the Soviet Union. This is a nation on the verge of bankruptcy. This is a nation so filled with corruption that the corruption might bring the nation down. This is a nation that can't build a nuclear submarine that isn't filled with serious flaws because of incompetent leadership. This is a nation whose navy is filled with rusting hulks. This is a nation that has no real economic base except selling energy to the rest of Europe, and that's going to change as a result of the Ukraine crisis. This is a nation with a population shrinking to the tune of .05% every year.  This is a nation whose leadership believes in squeezing every last drop out of the economy that exists – resulting in less and less income to their treasury - instead of passing laws that allow the economy to grow on its own - resulting in far more income to their treasury.  This is not a nation that is going anywhere to settle anything permanently, much less the moon or Mars. 

 I want to go back to an article I posted Tuesday, March 18, 2014 entitled, 'In 50 years we'llbe living on the moon, and be on our way to Mars': Stephen Hawking claims thiscentury will be a 'true space age'. 

Below was My Take on that day:
 

I know Stephen Hawking is supposed to be brilliant at what he does, which by virtue of the field requires a great deal of speculation, but Hawking has somehow become the one man on the planet whose views are untouchable. I have been reading his views on a great many things over the years and I think a great deal of what he says is speculator baloney, and this ranks right up at the top of the list.
I know, I know, "he's an expert"! So what? When you go back in time we find it's the experts who are the most wrong in their predictions, and I think it’s because they're in love with their own ideas, their older and unwilling to let go of whatever influence they may have, and they're now finding it difficult to understand new ideas and concepts, but no matter the reason - They're errors of prediction were massively wrong. 

I will state categorically we do not have the technology to live in such a harsh environment. I will state categorically that we will not have that technology in fifty years. I wonder if Hawking would be willing to bet all he owns on that? Because touching down and going home - or a few people living in a bubble being constantly resupplied and rotated - which can't even be done now - isn't living on the moon.

In the 1970’s Carter and his crowd insisted that solar power was the way to go. It was a technological failure. It’s now forty years later and we still haven’t been able to progress technologically enough to call solar power anything but a failure. So where exactly is this great technological advancement to come from that would allow humanity to live on another world?

Oh, one more thing. He's wrong on population also! What we need are affluent societies world over. That's when people stop making babies and stabilize the population.

Hmmmm...now I'm beginning to wonder. What has he been right about?

One of my regular readers, herbork, took a contrarian view to my comments saying:

I am always impressed by your site, but, in this case, I take a contrarian view without actually confronting your assertions head-on.

Hawkins has said the obvious before: "The future of the human race depends on getting off the planet." What he now foresees -- not much better than any good John W. Campbell, Jr. writer from sci-fi's Golden Age -- is a map of necessities leading out of the solar system.

Humanity has never reached a shore where we finally sat down and said: "This is it. We won't even try to cross this ocean." Hawkins' tech may not be available now, but you are as rash as he is, to say it cannot be done in half a century.

Nobody foresaw most of the 20th century's biggest scientific breakthroughs. Neither do you and I, in regards to the 21st. But this much is clear...

As you know, a couple weeks before the Wright Brothers gave man wings, the most prominent academic physicist of his day denounced the very idea of heavier-than-air flight.

Brilliant and accomplished as you may be, sir, don't be that guy.

First off, I thank him for his kind words, and although I agree with herbork that it’s unwise, and historically irrational, to take the position that mankind will never find a way to accomplish some feat  - that’s not what I said.  I said it wouldn’t be done in fifty of even in one hundred years.  We don’t have the technology, we don’t have the right kind of energy, there's nothing to indicate we will have any of that in the near future, we don’t have the need, nor do we have the will to do any of this, and Russia is flat out incapable of it. 

If the U.S. can’t do this then Russia is blowing a lot of hot air, and I’m beginning to wonder if all this headline grabbing isn’t some kind of behind the scenes play to refund NASA to the kind of money they were used to getting during the cold war days. 

Remember this.  No matter what reasons are outlined now - NASA funding was based on defense concerns - not exploration or the exploitation of space, if that’s even possible at this point.  As for mineral exploitation of the moon - that’s loony.  Most of the Moon is made up of glass like substances, which is why it’s so reflective.  On the Earth, which has an abundance of minerals, it still remains difficult to find them.  How and who is going to do this on the Moon?   And make no mistake about this.  No matter how much success the space station has with recycling air and water, they must be resupplied regularly.  Whose going to be able to fund this? 

This isn’t going to happen in fifty or one hundred years, and Putin and his crowd of thugs aren't going get it done. 

But it makes great headlines!