Russia Thinks Big in Space

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti has reported on the nation's new blueprint for space exploration - and it's an ambitious one. The plan envisions a cosmonaut on the moon by 2025, a lunar base seven years later, and a human expedition to Mars sometime after 2035.

COMMENT: The ghost of Sergey Korolev must be smiling. It's an audacious plan, every bit as ambitious as the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration. Whether Russia can pull it off, given the nation's economic and political challenges as well as the technical advancements required, remains to be seen, but nothing happens without a goal. It makes sense that something ambitious will eventually pull all the world's space powers into a joint program, but that, too, faces a lot of difficulties. The only thing we know for sure is that the next couple of decades should be very interesting.