Russia should have its own deep space program - Medvedev

Itar Tass: Russia should have its own deep space program - Medvedev
MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev believes that Russia should develop its own program for the exploration of deep space in general and the Moon in particular. "I think this is a very important topic, even in terms of our scientific ambitions. If we fail to address it at all, we shall degrade and will be pushed to the sidelines," the president said at a meeting with young scientists on Tuesday.

Medvedev admitted that he could not promise such a program would be ready in one year’s time, “which would let us catch up with the Americans.”

The president added that the topic was a subject matter for research by experts in Europe and China. “Everybody is willing to get in space, it is necessary to understand just where our place in space and on the Moon is," the head of state said.

The lack of a Russian deep space exploration program was raised by the winner of the presidential award in science for young scientists, Maxim Mokrousov, from the Institute for Space Studies. "It's no secret that all countries have set eyes on the Moon, the exploration of the Moon will begin for certain," he said. Medvedev agreed with the scientist: "No doubt." However, Mokrousov is concerned that for Russia there may be not enough space on the Moon, because there are "just four or five normal landing sites."

The president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Osipov, echoed the young scientist’s opinion to recall that there was such a program back in the Soviet era, but then it gradually shrank. "Space research is in danger, while 20 years ago we were the absolute leaders," Osipov said.

Medvedev asked who was responsible for developing such programs. "Roscosmos," Osipov replied. After hearing his response, the president made a note in his records.

At the same time, speaking in Washington last autumn at a meeting of the heads of space agencies from 30 countries, the head of federal space agency Anatoly Perminov, said that in the coming decade, Russia was planning to implement a number of major new space projects, study planets and smaller solar system bodies. He said that work was in progress on the project Phobos-Grunt, preliminary studies had been carried out for a complex project Mars-NET for the deployment on Mars of a network of small meteorological and seismological stations.

As the head of the Russian federal space agency said, “the recently obtained data from the Moon indicated the presence of large amounts of water and gave a strong impetus to our lunar program."

In addition, there are projects to explore Mercury, Jupiter and asteroids. The "Russian innovative project to create a transport-and-energy module based on a megawatt-class nuclear power plant has no counterparts in the world."

"The project focuses on the implementation of large-scale programs for the study and exploration of outer space (flights to distant planets, missions to Mars, Moon bases, and others), as well as for missions to asteroids in order to change the asteroids’ orbits and prevent the possibility of collision with the Earth," Perminov said.

The Russian Space Agency is also discussing with NASA future missions to deep space. According to the head of Roscosmos, research is underway into "preparations for leaving low-Earth orbits - and there are various ways of doing that – and for reaching certain points around the Moon and on the lunar surface and asteroids."

"All these moves are part of preparations for a flight to Mars," said Perminov.