Russia to ‘conquer the moon’ and station a squad of cosmonauts in permanent lunar outpost
Secret space base expected to begin operations by 2030
The Russian equivalent of NASA has announced plans to permanently station 12 cosmonauts in a secret base on the moon.
It might sound like the plot of a James Bond movie, but the very real plan is likely to leave politicians from the West feeling both shaken and stirred.
The space agency RosCosmos has spent years working on its lunar base scheme and has slowly released tantalising details of the plans.
Now it has announced that a dozen cosmonauts - the Russian word for astronaut - will live on the base.
"At the initial stage, the Moon base will be manned by no more than 2-4 people, with their number later rising to 10-12 people," Olga Zharova from the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash)
The base is likely to be built near one of the moon's poles, with a power station buried beneath it.
A fallout shelter will also be built underground, serving the dual purpose of protecting the crew from radiation and shielding them from any nuclear attacks.
It is likely that Russia's moon base will be used for scientific research and perhaps the mining of minerals, but it may also have some sort of military function.
The lunar surface would be the perfect place to build a satellite detection base, which could allow enemy spaceships to be detected and destroyed in the event of a conflict back down on Earth.
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Russia previously and currently has the edge on America and Europe in the space race.
Both NASA and ESA rely on its Soyuz rockets to get astronauts up to the International Space Station.
Deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin has also claimed his country is planning to set up a lunar base and be there "forever".
The US, UK and Russia signed a UN treaty in 1967 agreeing that "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind".
This means no country is allowed to claim ownership of the moon or any other planet and bans nations from placing nukes on the lunar surface.
"States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner," the agreement said.
NASA also has plans to build a lunar base, which could open up as early as 2022, whilst the European Space Agency is working on a similar scheme.
But there's no telling whether the next space race will be peaceful or spark the first conflict fought on the surface of another world.
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