anon45
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2010
- Messages
- 3,212
- Reaction score
- 4
- Country
- Location
The Russian government was already paying their space agency pennies, but it just got a lot worse
- On Monday, Igor Komarov, the director of Roscosmos — Russia's version of NASA — announced that the space agency will receive a total of $22.5 billion dollars in government funding over the next 10 years.
That might sound like a lot, but it's close to how much NASA gets from the federal government each year. In 2015, alone, NASA received approximately $18 billion, and is projected to get a similar amount each year through 2019.
Moreover, the latest Roscosmos budget is half the amount that the decade-long planning document called the Federal Space Program (FSP) 2016-2025 laid out earlier this year.
Komarov explained why in a statement:
“Based on today's economic situation, the funding for activities in the FSP is set at [1.521 trillion] rubles ($22.5 billion),” Komarov said, according to the The Moscow Times. “We have optimized the program, maintaining key projects … which will allow the industry to develop.”
Right now, it's unclear how this drastic cut will impact Russia's goal to land their first cosmonauts on the moon — an ambitious effort that they announced earlier this year.
The latest budget cut is the third Roscosmos has suffered this year.
Russian space agency gets major budget cut for the next decade - Business Insider
Along with this happening to a military launch.... Lost Russian Kanopus-ST satellite falls back to Earth over the Atlantic - SpaceFlight Insider
Looks like Putin is sacrificing space for earth based military assets.