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Russian Space Chief Calls for Training Missions to Moon

Posted on: Sunday, 12 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 12 September. Training for a manned flight to Mars should start with the moon, believes Anatoliy Perminov, head of the Federal Space Agency, Roskosmos. "Before completing a manned flight to Mars, a large amount of unmanned experimental flights must be carried out, starting with one to the moon", he told journalists.

"A 'moon' programme has been developing in Russia since the Soviet era, since the 1950s," Perminov said. Roskosmos remarked that 45 years ago to the day, the spacecraft Luna-2 was launched from Baykonur, and for the first time ever reached the surface of the moon and dropped off banners with an insignia of the USSR state emblem. "I take complete responsibility for saying that not one other country in the world has such projects as Russia does at this moment," the head of Roskosmos said.

Perminov is sure that Russia should cooperate with Europe and the USA in training for a manned flight to the moon. He said he had discussed the "moon" programme with the head of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, and they had agreed that "a single state cannot independently carry out such a large scale programme".

Since 1959, 24 Soviet automated Luna stations have been launched to the moon and eight Zond vehicles. With their help, the first photographs of the far side of the moon have been taken, images of the moon's surface have been beamed to earth and other important scientific data have been received. And in 300 days the self- propelled, remote-controlled craft Lunokhod -1 has transmitted various shots of the moon's surface to earth.

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