Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin

AP ^ | 1.27.04 | AFP

[ambrose]

Last Update: Tuesday, January 27, 2004. 1:03am (AEDT)

Russia, US can collaborate in Mars exploration: Putin

Russia and the United States can collaborate in exploring Mars, Russian President Vladimir Putin told US Secretary of State Colin Powell in talks on Monday.

Congratulating the envoy on the US mission that has seen two probes land on the surface of the Red Planet in the past three weeks, Mr Putin said that Russia "has noted with interest President Bush's ambitious plans for the conquest of Mars," the Interfax news agency reported.

"I believe that in this area there are things we can do together," Mr Putin said.

Mr Powell for his part said that he was "pleased with the developments that are on the horizon with respect to continued cooperation in space."

Mr Bush earlier this month said his administration planned to send American astronauts back to the Moon as early as 2015, perhaps to set up a base to provide a springboard for a manned mission to Mars, and invited other space powers to join in the initiative.

The initial response from Moscow was cool however.

Russian space officials hinted that Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission at considerably lower cost than the US proposal, but Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyoshin said last week that "the time is not right" for such a mission.

The US probe Opportunity landed on the Mars surface on Saturday with a similar exploratory mission to Spirit, which landed on Mars on January 3 but broke down last week.

Opportunity began transmitting pictures back to Earth that US space officials described as a "scientific jackpot."

[ambrose]

ping

[LibWhacker]

Nyet.

[ElkGroveDan]

I like your new toy. Can I play with it?

[Pubbie]

*Ping*!

[joesnuffy]

On to the UN and then the United Federation of Planets...

[Young Rhino]

Can't we enter into an alliance with the Vulcans instead?

[Pubbie]

I'd rather disband NASA and use the money for Tax Cuts.

Space travel won't really be profitable until somenone figures out how to make spaceships that can (Safely) travel much faster than the speed of light.

[ambrose]

Space travel won't really be profitable until somenone figures out how to make spaceships that can (Safely) travel much faster than the speed of light.

And just how is that going to happen in the absence of research and exploration? That's like saying let's not bother developing an Internet, because it isn't very practical to use at 300 baud.

[Pubbie]

The private sector will figure it out - the government shouldn't be involved

[ElkGroveDan]

Space travel won't really be profitable until somenone figures out how to make spaceships that can (Safely) travel much faster than the speed of light.

Oh come on, can't we have a serious discussion here?

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Moscow was capable of launching its own Mars mission...

Knock yourself out Mr. Putin.

While you are at it, why not help the Chinese out along the way.

With Russia's safety record, Major Tom will have some company.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Oh come on, can't we have a serious discussion here?

Absolutely, I mean Kirk hasn't even been born yet.

[Zack Nguyen]

I'm holding out for hyperspace travel. I want to reach all points in the universe simultaneously. Until then, forget it!

[DFW_Repub]

"With Russia's safety record"

They have a better safety record than we do, thats a fact!!

[anobjectivist]

I dunno, I kinda like an idea I saw somewhere (prolly capmag.com).

Give the entire planet to the first person to live on mars for a year (privately) and return to earth alive to collect.

[ambrose]

The fictional United Federation of Planets was essentially an American run operation before they decided to make it politically correct in the 1980s.

[Askel5]

=== They have a better safety record than we do, thats a fact!!


It is?



My guess is we get to pay -- a la International Space Station -- so they can play Capitalist meanwhile and line up glass-bottom capsule tours of the Red Planet.

[ambrose]

I don't agree. For one thing, I see manned space flight capabilities as a matter of national defense. We'll eventually have a militarized fleet in space. Either the Chinese we'll do it first or we will.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

They have a better safety record than we do, thats a fact!!

Look again. They don't count landing deaths as space deaths. We don't even know how many have died in the process of designing and manufacturing the rockets and all the sattelites. The U.S. has made everything public. Even our failures. Russia has yet to expose everything because of security concerns.

When you factor in the ratio of successful flights to deaths, they have a much higher ratio of deaths per # of flights.