Putin plans to take humans to the Moon and Mars in 2019
Although Russia had been away from the successful space race that the USSR had at the time, this is about to change very soon. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced that he will send manned missions to the Moon and Mars in the coming years in order to resume the space race.
In this opportunity, the challenge for Russia will not be easy. Now he will have to compete, not only with the United States to get to Mars first, but also with private companies like Elon Musk's famous SpaceX. According to the plans of the president of Russia, the first modules will reach Mars by 2019 with probes and rovers. A few years later, according to Putin, they hope to send the first manned mission to Mars. He did not explain how he would do it with such a short window of time and with objectives as complex as those proposed.
In addition, Putin announced that Roscosmos, the Russian space agency will try to send human beings to the poles of the Moon as "part of the work done during the Soviet Union's space program," recalling the days of the first space race between the United States and Russia that took place during the Cold War. This is because they believe that there can be much more water there than in other parts of the satellite. Finally, Putin also mentioned the possibility of using the Moon as a starting point to continue studying and exploring other planets an idea that NASA is also considering. The race to bring the first humans to Mars has already started a long time ago. The clearest example is that of Elon Musk, who a few weeks ago launched the Falcon Heavy into space and sent a Tesla Roadster to the orbit of the sun.
The space race has gone from a "cold" to a "hot" stage, with Vladimir Putin announcing an unmanned Russian mission to Mars next year. This unmanned ship would simply be the preamble for sending manned missions to eventually fulfill the dream of colonizing the red planet. The statements were made within the framework of a documentary made by Andrey Kondrashov. In it, Putin agreed that these manned and unmanned missions are planned to the sister planet of the earth.
