Russian Company Plans to Build Base on the Moon

 Moon Base  

A Russian company has announced it is ready to build a base on the Moon at a cost of around 10 billion dollars.

A Russian company wants to build a manned base on the moon and announced recently that it has the resources and capabilities to do just that.

The privately owned company, Lin Industrial, currently developing the ultralightweight Taimyr rocket, has announced readiness to build a base on the Moon, called "Moon Seven."

The company believes they can construct the base for less than $10 billion. That includes the first stages of a lunar outpost, followed by a second facility that would be manned by two and then, later, four humans. Lin Industrial expects that constructing and deploying the base will take around 10 years.

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The company proposes that a location near the moon's south pole, known as Mons Malapert, located at 2°E and latitude 85.75°S, would be their construction site for the lunar base.

“This is a quite flat plateau with the Earth in direct sight that provides good conditions for communications and is a comfortable place for landing. The sun is shining for 89% of the day on the mount, the night which takes place there only several times a year does not last more than 3-6 days,” the company's chief designer Alexander Ilyin told TASS.

The base, actually more of a small village, will be made up of only up to four people.

According to Lin Industrial, building a lunar base is no easy feat and requires at least 37 rocket launches to carry parts to the surface of the moon. The launches alone would take probably over five years.

Lin Industrial's head is Sergei Burkatovsky, one of the creators of online game World of Tanks. He's only invested about $176,000 in the project so far. Lin Industrial states it needs around $200,000 just for the first prototype rocket and another $13.5 million just to test launch it.

According to Lin Industrial's website (translated from Russian),

People need a purpose. The purpose of inspiring, but at the same time realized. NASA is looking for "flexible path" and relies on private traders, Roscosmos is trying to keep the Soviet legacy and hard learns to create something new.
Cosmic expansion dreamed about in the '60s, has almost disappeared even from the pages of science fiction novels.
It's time not because of, but in spite of everything - take a step!

However likely Lin Industrial's Lunar Base actually is, there is at least one more lunar project with more steam behind it. Lunar Mission One, another privately-run project aimed at the moon, recently raised over $1 million for the first phase of its mission on Kickstarter. That project also has the backing of RAL Space, an organization that has helped both NASA and the ESA develop over 200 missions, including the ESA's recent history-making Rosetta mission.

Lunar Mission One's goal includes landing a rover on the moon's south pole within ten years. The idea is to drill into the moon's surface and collect samples of lunar rock we've never seen before. This is just the first mission in what the organization behind the project thinks could lead to an eventual manned base there.

Commenting on this initiative, Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Space Research Lev Zeleny noted that the project heralded the interest regained to the exploration and development of the Moon. “This is still early to say about construction of a settlement,” the academician noted.

Time will tell who gets there first, but all indications are that there is certainly a renewed interest in the moon, so the age-old dream of a moon base is very much alive.


SOURCE  TASS, Lin Industrial

By 33rd Square

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