Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station
Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station

SB news

Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station
SB news
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Djibouti, Egypt, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, Serbia, Thailand, South Africa, and Ethiopia, including colleagues from BRICS (Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa).
Wow there is so much opportunity for veiled racism for liberals to do here.
Imagine saying "lol how is having Senegal going to help your space program" and then boasting about latvia
Those countries (aside from allies and BRICS partners like Belarus, Pakistan, Serbia and South Africa) are all unironically valuable for aerospace through their geography. They seem to be largely purposeful choices (not sure about Azerbaijan other than potential Caspian Sea access for Russia). For the others, they're all well within the tropics meaning the ILRS can develop rival equatorial launch sites to the French colonial occupation of Guiana in South America.
Aside from Bolivia (which is a good back up partner for maintaining telescope infrastructure in the Andes if Milei in Argentina is bribed by the US to sabotage China's Argentine telescope there), they are all coastal countries meaning launch infrastructure can be transported by the same means the ESA does to Guiana and much latitudinally closer to the equator than Russia and China's territorial manned launch locations in Baikonur in Kazakhstan or Wenchang in Hainan.
Euro space program is literally reliant on the french colony of Guiana.
including colleagues from BRICS (Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa)
The one country doing PR stunts sending people to space isn't on this list curious
I fucking hate my country, lol. We have a launch base and are a member of BRICS why the fuck are we not helping? Deeply unserious country, with deeply unserious leaders. Being under a bunch o compradors really fucks up this country
Mr. Bakanov explained that unique scientific schools operate in Russia: they are focused on the study of Venus, the Moon, and Mars. According to him, no one in the world has replicated the Russian [sic] technology of landing on Venus yet.
What a joke... This is 1970s & 80s Soviet technology that has not been replicated by anyone else, Russian Federation included. Great Russian chauvinism moment.
Also, nobody's replicated it because after the soviets revealed Venus is a boiling acid hell there just wasn't much will or interest to keep landing on it. Like, try selling a billion dollar mission to Venus that'll melt into sludge 2 hours after landing vs one to Mars that'll run for a decade minimum.
And rover landing tech has come crazy far since parachutes attached to cannonballs. We've put a helicopter on Mars. But I'm not even sure a sky crane system like we use on Mars would be viable on Venus. Higher gravity, higher pressure, more corrosive atmosphere, higher heat.
Why would you even want to use the sky crane system on Venus? It has a thick atmosphere. You use a more appropriate landing mechanism. And if your lander that's gonna be destroyed in a couple hours costs a billion dollars then that's just an issue with production. Produce several, relatively unsophisticated landers and reserve the billions of dollar missions to like an airship or something.
I’m wondering if this means a space station in lunar orbit or an actual base on the surface of the moon?
It is surface yes. The CPC has added this to their official list of upcoming projects. They will soon be launching Chang'e missions to scout out locations and water ice resources on the surface. Aswell as sending up a system that can 3-d print building material from lunar soil.
Humanity will have its first permanent surface settlement on another body in our lifetimes, and itll be built and manned by communists. I cant wait to watch the western liberals seethe.
This gives me a lot of optimism. When the CPC officially adopts it as policy that's about the safest bet you can get that it's actually going to happen. If it was just Russia saying it i would be skeptical. The Russian Federation can be a bit fickle and prone to changing their minds on projects like this, yet another unfortunate result of a profit-driven capitalist system. But when China says it's going to do something, they are serious.
From what I read, the goal is to build an actual moon base.
It's gotta be a surface station. there's not much utility in a manned station orbiting the moon at this point and it's redundant to tiangong from a developmental perspective.
a surface base is a major effort & it makes sense to approach it as a collaborative project similar to how ISS was carried out.
EDIT: plus China is already working toward a surface base. I know of no plans for orbiters beyond unmanned satellites.
The Moon is a Harsh Mao-stress
Star Trek, let's gooooo!
GIWTWM