Permanently manned ISS could end in 2020

AFP Photo / NASA PhotoRT News

Man in orbit might become history after 2020, as Russia sees no need to keep the ISS operating, announced Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Manned flights make little profit for Russia’s space agency, which might focus on other projects.

Russia’s Roskosmos space corporation gets little commercial payback from the International Space Station despite spending up to 30 percent of its annual budget on the project, said Rogozin, who is also responsible for the defence industry.  

“Our profit is flat low… so we see no business interest in it [going on with the ISS]. Would there be other commercial proposals [we’d consider them],” Rogozin said.

“There are rumors about Russia leaving the ISS project. We will not, the program is set to run until 2020 and we will stick to our international obligations. As for prolonging it till 2024 – that’s what we really doubtful of,” Rogozin stressed.

Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin (AFP Photo / John Thys)

Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin (AFP Photo / John Thys)

“Simply circling the earth’s orbit and earning something on cosmonaut delivery to space – that’s not enough for this great space country [Russia],” Rogozin said, adding that Roskosmos needs an innovative space exploration plan that would imply a technological breakthrough from the technologies of the last century.

Roskosmos is due to deliver a preliminary plan by June 15, according to Rogozin.

“As for our manned flights plans beyond 2020 – we would probably have new projects with an expanded number of partners,” he said, specifying that a general agreement has been reached with China and that negotiations of further Russia-China space cooperation are due to start in late June. India has also expressed interest in joint space exploration programs, he said.

The Chinese are making great progress in space exploration but it does not mean Moscow and Beijing are necessarily discussing development of a joint space station, Rogozin stressed.

Rogozin once again confirmed that Moscow is firmly set to shut down 11 American correctional GPS stations situated in Russia’s 10 regions on June 1 if Washington continues to ignore Moscow’s requests on deployment of similar stations on US territory.

If there is no reaction from the US by May 31, the GPS stations will suspend operation for the next three months. If that does not help either, the operation of GSM stations in Russia will cease to exist by August 31, Rogozin promised, adding that this will not interfere with ordinary users of the system in Russia, because the information collected by these stations is being used primarily by the US military and national security agencies.

“These [GSM] stations are situated primarily alongside the Northern Sea Route and it is a big question why they were deployed on our territory in the mid-1990s and for what purpose,” the Deputy PM said, stressing that once the stations are gone, “the American military would feel the difference, whereas Russian GSM users would not.”

http://rt.com/news/161632-iss-rogozin-effective-output/

One thought on “Permanently manned ISS could end in 2020

  1. Once again, proof that Russia and China are the new players trying to take over the world as the U.S. falls further into the abyss. Like good Communists and Fascists, they only care about the profit, rather than the future of space exploration. So to them, if it fails, oh well. It doesn’t matter. The U.S. is no longer number one and there’s no need to compete. So the Russians will just buy it out and then sell the pieces for scrap metal like Barry does with our facilities. No space program ever again. In the meantime, they will be good Fascists and tell the corporations to invest in space exploration and satellites like Barry has been doing and since they go based on profit, it will never get off the ground because there’s no value in it for their shareholders.

    Meanwhile, the secret governments around the world will continue with their hidden NASA (the REAL NASA that the governments don’t want you to know about) in hopes that one day, they can do their fake alien invasion thing without anyone realizing it, since space exploration will have been extinct by then.

    Once again, Communism is causing us to move backwards and de-evolve rather than move forward and evolve. It’s a failed system in every way and has proven without a doubt to be a failed and inhumane system over and over again. So why are we allowing these bastards to take us back to it?

    Death to the COMMUNISTS!!!

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