Russia's lunar exploration is beneficial not in terms of economy, but for the country's prestige globally, Yuri Kostitsyn, the director of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences, told Sputnik.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th December, 2018) Russia's lunar exploration is beneficial not in terms of economy, but for the country's prestige globally, Yuri Kostitsyn, the director of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of Russian academy of Sciences, told Sputnik.In late November, the Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos state space agency and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Council on Space considered the country's concept for lunar exploration. The document was said to be submitted to Russian President Vladimir Putin in three months.
"Speaking about the benefit that might support the state's budget by the end of the first five years of the program's implementation, it is not cost-effective ... But there is such a benefit as prestige. It is what triggered the lunar race between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1960s. Initially, the United States' desire to explore space was political in its nature and prosaic in terms of science," Kostitsyn said.
According to Kostitsyn, everyone understands that the country whose people would land the Moon would be first in choosing the ways of the planet's development.
He indicated, at the same time, that despite the fact that the issue of primacy in lunar exploration was still actual, the antagonistic race between the United States and Russia no longer existed.
"Both [Russia] and the United States have their own lunar projects, but is is suggested to implement them jointly. For example, our western colleagues invite us to equip Russian and US stations jointly. In this terms we have learned how to cooperate," Kostitsyn indicated.
Russia and the United States have enjoyed fruitful cooperation in space for decades. The two countries have managed to maintain close ties in the space field despite the fact that the political dialogue between the two countries has been dominated by tensions recently.
