How Russia (yes, Russia) plans to land cosmonauts on the Moon by 2030

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  Rockets for the Moon: developmental new vehicles (payload capacity to LEO in metric tons), including various Angara rockets, the Soyuz 5 booster, and Super Thrust Block 1 and Super Thrust Block 2. [credit: Roscosmos ]

Last Thursday, the leader of Russia's state space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, gave a wide-ranging talk at Moscow University. The speech sought to describe activities happening now at Roscosmos and what may happen in the future, including a potential lunar landing.

Rogozin addressed his comments largely to students at the university, and he sought to paint a picture of a vibrant national space enterprise. This is presumably to boost the desirability of a career in space, as young people have been pursuing aerospace careers in smaller numbers. Reports of low salaries, low morale, and a lack of funding to even remove trash from Roscosmos facilities has not helped this trend.

The Russian plan

Via Robinson Mitchell, Ars obtained a copy of the slide deck Rogozin used for his speech and a translation of its contents (key slides are shown above). Of particular interest is the speech's focus on an independent lunar landing featuring cosmonauts by 2030. Taken at face value-which probably is not wise, given the big question of how Russia would fund such an enterprise-a Russian attempt to land humans on the Moon a decade from now would set up an extraordinary race among that country, NASA's Artemis Program, and China's lunar ambitions.

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