Moon rocket blasts off, carrying Russia’s hope of first successful lunar landing since 1976 (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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The Luna-25 mission will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area, and sending back data for signs of water or its building blocks, which could raise the possibility of a future human colony on the moon.

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[-] ME5SENGER_24@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

How is Russia shooting off moon rockets while engaged in war. NATO needs to up the ante and give Ukraine what they need to put the Russians under ground, not into space

[-] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 22 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I'm kinda okay with them spending money and resources on this. Better to spend resources doing this than building missiles and tanks. My only concern is that it may be serving a secondary purpose for testing new ICBM launch systems.

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Space programs have always been part military.

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/military-rockets-launched-space-age

[-] zhunk@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Luna-25 launched on a Soyuz rocket, which is actually derived from an ICBM in the R-7 family. There aren't any active ICBMs in that family anymore, and it seems like their newer liquid fueled ICBMs use different fuels and engines. They could share avionics, structures, and upper stages, but the heavy lifting is done pretty differently.

*As far as I can tell from memory and a quick Wikipedia scan

[-] cnnrduncan@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Considering the R7 ICBM that this rocket is based off was first tested in the late 1950s I kinda doubt it's of much concern

[-] Subverb@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

It's because of the war I'd bet. They hope to demonstrate to the world that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

[-] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org 5 points 1 year ago

We and our NATO allies are using Ukraine as we used the middle east and africa.

Ukraine is a small country stuck in the middle of our war games.

Our military companies will keep making money after the war building stuff back up.

[-] jcit878@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

"we" didn't invade ukraine

[-] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org 1 points 1 year ago

War games.

Politics plays roles in everything that has to do with money, war being one of the major donations to the wealthy.

Middle East, Africa, Latin America.

Reason why many come to US, we had something to do with the overthrowing of the gov'ts in place.

[-] Krause@lemmygrad.ml -2 points 1 year ago

Is couping the government really that different? After all, that's what started this in the first place if we're not counting the dissolution of the USSR.

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s probably been in development for a decent number of years. By the time they invaded Ukraine, it may have been more difficult to cancel it if 99% of such a big mission was complete.

Plus, Russia (with China as a partner) is looking to assert its dominance in space once again. If their partners are willing to throw in $$$, Russia will prove they are worthy of such a task & capable of providing rockets that can achieve escape velocity.

[-] zhunk@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

So, the ISS still relies on the Russian side to stay up. Russian Progress spacecraft do most of the reboosting for it to stay in orbit. It stinks, but that's still the reality up there. At least the war got every Western satellite off Russian rockets, but we're still doing crew exchanges, where a Roscomos Cosmonaut flies on a SpaceX Dragon 2 and a NASA Astronaut flies on a Soyuz.

I wish NASA would have been able to fund ISS replacements sooner so we could get out of there before 2030.

[-] cmbabul@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

On the other hand let Putin burn as many resources as possible and then bring the hammer down

[-] iridaniotter@lemmygrad.ml -3 points 1 year ago

Off-topic. Please engage in the topic matter! You don't need to make everything about the war.

[-] jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org 1 points 1 year ago

Sad reality is war has a big impact on a lot of our lives.

We just don't see the damages first hand due to them taking place elsewhere, takes time and learning to see what things are changing.

[-] Grass@geddit.social 6 points 1 year ago

Russia is pretty weird and all over the place lately

[-] autotldr 4 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Vitaly Egorov, a blogger who writes extensively on space exploration, said: “Now 12 years later they’re launching Luna-25 and the main intrigue is whether or not it will succeed in reaching [the moon] or not, and if it does, can it actually land there?

“The question of prestige always plays a role in interplanetary research, in China and the United States as well, that’s why the Russian government gave money to this exploration,” said Egorov.

Only the Soviet Union, China and the US have previously managed to land probes on the moon, and marks an unlikely confluence of missions that almost indicates a new race.

Tougher sanctions since 2022 will likely increase shortages for years to come, meaning that even if Russia is successful this time, it may not be able to repeat that mission or launch further probes without manufacturing its own alternatives.

Officials said they would evacuate residents of Shakhtinsky, a small village in the far east, on the very unlikely chance that a rocket stage could come crashing down on their homes.

He said: “Luna-25 is possible to show that Russia and the Russian space programme and its specialists can have some positive influence and enrich international science and not just play at militarisation and fulfil the wishes of the ministry of defence.”

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