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Purveyor

(29,876 posts)
Fri Apr 12, 2013, 01:08 PM Apr 2013

New Space Race: Putin Unveils $50 Billion Drive For Russian Supremacy

President Vladimir Putin on Friday unveiled a new $50 billion drive for Russia to preserve its status as a top space power, including the construction of a brand new cosmodrome from where humans will fly to space by the end of the decade.

Fifty-two years to the day since Yuri Gagarin became the Soviet Union’s greatest hero by making the first human flight into space, Putin inspected the new Vostochny (Eastern) cosmodrome Russia is building in the Amur region of the Far East.

Putin said in a live link-up with the multinational crew of the International Space Sation (ISS) that Russia hoped to have the first launches from Vostochny in 2015 and the first manned launches in 2018.

“It’s going to be a great launch pad. It took a long time to choose but now work is fully underway,” said Putin in comments broadcast on state television, adding that Vostochny would be fully operational by 2020.

Russia still carries out all manned launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan — the same place where Gagarin made his historic flight — but this has been shadowed in recent years by disputes with the Kazakh authorities over the lease terms.

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/12/new-space-race-putin-unveils-50-billion-drive-for-russian-supremacy/

Good. The US and its crusaders need to be put back into their box and it will take a counter force to achieve that. It helps that we are broke, too...

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