By Alex Bellury, Contributing writer
Friday, November 30, 2018

(NEW FRONTIER NEWS)- A new space race emerges between the United States and Russia as Russia announces they’ll launch a colony on the moon by 2040.

Soon after Russia made their announcement, NASA replied saying they will have a colony on the moon within a decade.

Roscomos, the Russian federal space agency, published a press release on Wednesday stating it was in their interest to establish lunar bases.

“The interest of mankind to the moon is associated primarily with the fact that unique regions with favorable conditions for the construction of lunar bases were discovered on the satellite,” the report began. “The implementation of the lunar program will be held in several stages until 2040.”

Russia plans to carry out its mission in three phases; the launch of an orbital station, a manned mission to the surface, and the eventual construction of a permanent base.

The first stage launches the module to orbit the moon. The second stage will be Russia’s first manned mission to the moon and start long-term construction of the base from 2025-2034.

The third and final stage envisions completion of the construction by 2040 and an “integrated manned moon exploration system.”

The agency says geopolitical climates and limit resources will factor into the timeline of the space mission.

They also said they had pinpointed ‘unique regions with favorable conditions for the construction of lunar bases’ using a satellite.

NASA’s Administrator, Jim Bridenstine, thinks of the mission as a stepping stone, as seen in his statement to The Hill.

“Right now we’re building a space station, we call it ‘Gateway,’ that’s going to be in orbit around the moon — think of it as a reusable command module where we can have human presence in orbit around the moon,” Bridenstine said. “From there we want reusable landers that go back and forth to the surface of the moon. We think we can achieve this in about 10 years, the idea being prove the capability, retire the risk, prove the human physiology and then go on to Mars.”


Associated Press. (November 2018). Russia Announces Plans to Establish Moon Colony by 2040. The Moscow Times. Russia.

Greene, Tristan. (November 2018). Russia to build Moon colony by 2040: NASA says hold my beer. The Next Web. The Netherlands.

Weston, Phoebe. (November 2018). Is a space war brewing? Russia announces it will establish a lunar colony by 2040 just hours after Nasa says it’s returning to the moon ‘to stay’. The Daily Mail. The United Kingdom.