RUSSIA WANTS TO BE ON THE MOON BY 2030
A few days ago in a little miniseries of blogs, I wrote about the strange space news that seems to imply that there is some sort of urgency afoot in space circles. Most especially, I pointed out that NASA administrator Bolden wants the USA to be on Mars by 2030, adding that he stated it was "essential to human survival." This curious assertion raised the needle on my suspicion meter into the red zone: why the urgency? Were we going to run out of oil and gas in the next 14 years? I doubt it (I'm one of those pesky abiotic, non-peak oil people, not that I'm all that enamored of "fossil" fuels either). So why the urgency? I implied in my blogs that perhaps there was an urgency from quarters or for reasons we're not being told, and that perhaps one of the reasons for the urgency was military: if one were to defend this little corner of space from "whomever," one would want bases on the natural "defense zones," the Moon, and Mars.
Now there's more fuel for the speculative fires on this score, and once again, the fuel is being provided by the Russians, as many of you brought to my attention by sharing the following stories:
Russia to begin Moon Colonization in 2030
Russia Plans to Colonize Moon by 2030, Newspaper Reports
There's that date again: 2030. Note the reasons given for the "urgency" in the first article:
"'The moon is a space object for the future exploration by terrestrial civilization, and a geopolitical competition for the Moon's natural resources may begin in the 21st century,' said a report on a potential lunar program prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Roscosmos space agency and Moscow State University.
"The program aims to build an inhabited moon base and testing ground by the middle of the century, which would allow mineral extraction on Earth's only natural satellite.
"The project calls on developing a range of long-distance space technology to ensure the country can explore the moon independently from foreign partners. Earlier proposals for lunar exploration focused on strong international cooperation, as it was believed no single country could afford interplanetary projects on its own."(Emphasis added)
Note the three implications of the Novosti article:
- There is going to be (or really, already is) an "exo-geopolitical" contest under way for the development of off-planet resources;
- The Russians intend (like the Chinese) to develop Moon bases for said commercial exploitation of lunar resources; and
- They intend to do this unilaterally, abandoning internationalist "cooperation" models that have prevailed since the end of Cold War, Act One.
And that's the rub: the Russians are announcing the end of the unipolar era, and doing so in space. We are looking, in other words, at more blowback from American aggressiveness in the post-Cold War era, and a new era of space competition beginning. The second article cites Isvestia, which in turn is citing the same Roscosmos study:
"The Russian document underlined the need for speedy lunar exploration, saying "leading space powers will expand and establish their rights to convenient lunar footholds to ensure future opportunities for practical use," in the next 20 to 30 years, Izvestia cited the document as saying.
"The price tag of the mission is uncertain, but the first stage of the program is expected to cost around 28.5 billion rubles ($815.8 million), while earlier estimates indicated that developing and building a piloted spaceship would add 160 billion rubles or so, though Russia hopes to attract private investors to help bankroll the project, the report said.
"But while the program envisages international cooperation on the project, it stresses that the "independence of the national lunar program must be ensured regardless of the conditions and the extent of the participation in it by foreign partners."
Again, this is an intriguing "service of notice," that Russia is not abandoning the private-international cooperation model completely, but rather, an announcement that if it cannot find such partners, it intends, as a matter of its national security, to develop the capabilities any way. It is a clear announcement, again, that commercial exploitation of space is entering an era of Cold War, Act Two.
But again, why the date of 2030? Given Bolden's own use of that date, perhaps we are looking at the deliberate creation of a meme, a meme of "public competition" being pushed precisely in order to ratchet up public support for a new space race. Or perhaps both Roscosmos and NASA know something they're not saying. In either case, watch developments closely, because the same processes of reasoning evident in the Russian study are bound to be echoed in Beijing, New Delhi, and Berlin.
Are where commercial interests go, weapons and militaries are not far behind...
See you on the flip side.
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NO ! NO ! PLEASE ! NOT THAT ! DO NOT MINE THE MOON ! IT WILL GET LIGHTER, AND THE EARTH WILL GET HEAVIER, AND EVERYTHING WILL GO BOING, BOING ! TIDES WILL BE CONFUSED ! SO WILL I ! OH, MICKLE WOE IS ME ! DEAR PLEIADIANS : PLEASE EVACUTE ME ASAP !
And then there’s this:
http://youtu.be/em2Mxoqkjlc
Just setting aside for the moment the issue of whether somebody (from Earth) is going to Mars and how, we might pick out a couple of keywords: “genome” and “urgency”. Things that are undoubtedly on certain agendas.
And let’s not forget that 2030 is the year the European JUICE mission (sounds like something from SOE in WW2!) is supposed to arrive, after an 8-year journey, to the Moons of Jupiter. It was reported last year that the Russians were going to collaborate.
All the above bring to mind Shakespeare;
specifically, his Horatio/Hamlet…
Horatio: O but this is wondrous strange.
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger gives it welcome. There are more things in heaven(tax heaven LOL!) & earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I wouldn’t doubt Laura M. Eisenhower’s testimonies for a second; I believe the woman is for real and that we’re waaay farther than the moon and that NASA is a front/blocking org. for something much greater than we’ve been told (now enter Gary McKinnon…)
When asked why they hadn’t landed a man on the moon, apparently the Russian answer was: we will when we can safely land and return from the surface of the moon. So are they gonna encase their rockets in lead to avoid all that pesky radiation? Or find another way to get there? At the very least, special effects have come a long way since the Apollo era. Yes I have a suspicious mind, it will take some convincing. But I’m willing to be convinced. There’d better be some dust on the footpads of the lunar lander and no photos from impossible angles, on and on I could go. I’m sure lessons were learnt from Apollo…
You actually sound insane for questioning your sanity
Most of us know the moon landinggs were rubbish
So everybody wants to go to the Moon, wasn’t there a song with that title. I keep saying it, but they are going to need “something” better than rockets. The mind boggles at just the thought of having front end loaders and dump trucks on the Moon, oh, and how you gunna get them there. I’ll bet Caterpillar shares will skyrocket if they get a share of the contracts. Then there is the problem of “grazing rites”, who owns what, or does finders keepers apply. This is some high speculation indeed, but as Joseph has implied, it might end up as a race, but then again, the Secret Space Program and the hidden system of finance have a head start, so it’s not a matter of how, but when.
Just remembered where I have heard that song. In the French Connection, Popeye and Cloudy go for a late night drink at a swish bar, and it’s “The Three Degrees” singing “Everybody Wants To Go to The Moon”, the movie is one of my all time favs. Maybe the girls were having an ESP moment.
When the Mon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…….that’s amore
🙂
if one recalls the lyrics to the song “Man on the Moon” by the rock group REM:
“if you believe they put a man on the moon; if you believe there’s nothing up their sleeve then nothing’s cool”
I wouldn’t doubt humanity is on the moon or even farther but I think we can assume it wasn’t due to NASA;
now enter Gary McKinnon…
Survival indeed – of the military/industrial/space complex.
Aka murder I industrial complex
Is squaring the circle
The Russians don’t have to go it alone they can join in a federation of Earth spacefaring nations. China, Japan, Russia, India, Brazil representing the rest of Iberic America, South Africa representing Africa and finally Germany representing Western Europe. The USSA has really painted itself into a corner as it stated in Battlestar Galactica they have no friends they have no allies greed heads indeed you drop the ball forty five years ago stupid.
Indeed there are a multitudes of purposes involved by multiple players at multiple cross-purposes. The urgency beyond these paramount objectives lives in the realm of the occult. And this occult masks itself because there is “space-centric-grid-event” in the making. So the players are positioning themselves for various political purposes; but the real mother(it’s that day) is the event that does literally requires one to be in position. An astrologer whispered in someone’s ear, perhaps thru some old ancient Atlantis/Sumerian/Babylon/Alexander scroll. Or, in keeping in sync: multiples of scrolls relating to a said time & place?
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music.
Is this that kind of “noise”, that the many Caesars of today, are listening to? Is it both a prophecy & warning?
(Smoking some High-Octane Shakespearian from Panama)
The US privatized its lunar missions a couple years ago and I’m wondering if the Russians are realizing that they got left out of the loop and are trying to catch up. To me these articles have a tone of competition that I didn’t really catch in the US statements of these same goals previously. Just strikes me as curious, as if they are trying to catch up knowing the importance of the mission….if you are not a player in the cosmos, you will be unimportant in any other earthly dealings.
I think they all know something…
Certainly Daryl is right to say that a more cooperative and therefore rational effort is required, but does not for the moment seem to be on the books.
Just two comments.
While the NASA statement about Mars probably has several layers of meaning, I think it can be safely said that when the oligarchs refer to “human survival” they mean mostly or completely “oligarch survival”.
Although I am not very up to date on the issue, there seems to be little doubt that a Russian “secret space program” has long existed and, given the cultural and political background, that the secrecy is just as deep if not more so than in America – also from the financial point of view (this might be an interesting issue for a vidchat!)
Gotta put “publicly acknowledged” in front of moon colony.
One wonders what watershed moment must occur, after which this sad charade of a space race will give way to a more honest, dignified and just advance into space — one neither funded by fiat money nor hampered by elitist secrecy. Apparently, the year 2030 may be the nearest date for such a “forced disclosure.”
Yet it’s equally conceivable that even after a cataclysmic event upon Earth, the powers that be would maintain their veil of secrecy over our greater reality. In fact, the rather modest stated goals of colonizing the Moon and Mars — both of which may already be so –may well signal that a continuing obfuscation is indeed the plan. What we see then in these latest developments is merely an openly announced long-range commitment to continued dishonesty.