Posted on Sunday, September 02 2007 @ 0:26 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
The head of Russia's space agency said Russia will put their first cosmonauts on the Moon by 2025. They also have plans to establish a station on the Moon between 2027 and 2032 and send a manned mission to Mars after 2035:
The US is also planning future manned trips to the moon, using staged-rocket technology rather similar to that of the Apollo programme, and a moonbase - and then on to Mars.
In the nearer term Roskosmos plans to complete its parts of the Inernational Space Station by 2015, and carry out "major modernisation" to its Soyuz orbital-lift craft.
Russia might get around to cosmonauts on Mars after 2035, according to Perminov. he said that difficulties with background radiation in space would be hard to surmount, and the two or three year length of the journey would "involve huge challenges in terms of storage space and stress on the crew" - according to AFP.
Source: The Register.
