Lunar, "Wulan", Moon, Croissant: Same Name, Gargantuan Budget

Houston 9.10pm

Russia said Monday (Aug 7th, 2023) it plans to launch a lunar lander this week after multiple delays, hoping to return to the Moon for the first time in nearly fifty years. For comparison, U.S government collaborating with the private sector for its Artemis program, which aims to put astronauts, including the first woman, on the moon by 2024. 2010, on the seventh anniversary of the Columbia disaster, (former) President Obama unveiled a sweeping change of course for the nation's space program, putting an end to NASA's post-Columbia moon program and shifting development and operation of new rockets and capsules from the government to private industry.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said it had scheduled the launch of the Luna-25 lander for the early hours of Friday.

Soyuz (Russian: Союз, IPA: [sɐˈjus], lit. 'Union') is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet crewed lunar programs. It is launched on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Between the 2011 retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle, saving budget by U.S. government especially impact of crisis 2008-2010, and the 2020 demo flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Soyuz served as the only means to ferry crew to or from the International Space Station, for which it remains heavily used. Although China did launch crewed Shenzhou flights during this time, none of them docked with the ISS. NASA has relied on Soyuz to ferry its astronauts to and from the ISS, paying its Russian counterpart Roscosmos an average of around $86 million for each seat over a total of 35 launches. Obama signed CCDev1, CCDev2, CCiCap, CPC1, CCtCap from 2010-2014 (CCtCap is still active). Those are the Commercial Crew Development programs that kept SpaceX out of Bankruptcy. In total, $3,144,600,000 to SpaceX through 2014, with US$2,600,000,000 each year since. About SpaceX Crew Dragon in May 2020, the astronauts safely returned to Earth in August 2020, and in November, NASA certified SpaceX to begin routine missions. The first of these was carried out that same month, sending four astronauts—three American and one Japanese—to the ISS.

Problem about SpaceX, according to Lora Kolodny from CNBC, SpaceX didn't even apply for the kind of permits required to discharge industrial process wastewater at a spaceport surrounded by wetlands and on the Gulf. They keep pushing ahead with tests and as you can see, keep discharging water. Twenty-four hours after appearing with Elon Musk to announce his campaign for president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed a bill into law that will shield Musk's SpaceX and other private space companies from negligence lawsuits after an explosion or a crash.

The return of launches to U.S. soil forms part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), a collaboration with the American aerospace industry initiated in 2010 with the aim of developing launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and the ISS.

NASA awarded SpaceX more than $3 billion in funding to develop the Crew Dragon. They also gave American aerospace giant Boeing nearly $5 billion to develop their own spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, which is also designed to take astronauts to low-Earth orbit. Boeing is slightly behind SpaceX though, with the company hoping to conduct a manned test flight of the Starliner in 2021.

Space exploration is expensive, but it is a relatively minor line item in the U.S. budget. NASA’s spending peaked at almost 4.5 percent of the federal budget in 1966, declined to 1 percent by 1975, and has gradually fallen to about half a percent in recent years. (In comparison, defense spending has hovered around 20 percent of the budget in recent years.) Congress appropriated about $23 billion for NASA in 2021, an increase of roughly 3 percent from the previous year.

With the lunar mission, Russia's first since 1976, Moscow is seeking to restart and build on the Soviet Union's pioneering space programme.

The launch is the first mission of Moscow's new lunar project and comes as President Vladimir Putin looks to strengthen cooperation in space with China after ties with the West broke down following the start of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine last year.

Engineers have assembled a Soyuz rocket at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East for the launch of the lander, Roscosmos said.

"The Luna-25 will have to practise soft landing, take and analyse soil samples and conduct long-term scientific research," Roscosmos said in a statement.

The four-legged lander, which weighs around 800 kilograms (1,750 pounds) , is expected to touch down in the region of the lunar south pole. By contrast, most previous Moon landings have occurred near the lunar equator.

The spacecraft is expected to reach the Moon around five days after launch.

After Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year, the European Space Agency (ESA) said it would not cooperate with Moscow on the upcoming Luna-25 launch as well as future 26 and 27 missions.

Despite the pullout, Moscow said it would go ahead with its lunar plans and replace ESA equipment with Russian-made scientific instruments.

Speaking at the Vostochny cosmodrome last year, Putin said the Soviet Union put the first man into space in 1961 despite "total" sanctions.

The Kremlin chief insisted Moscow would similarly continue to develop its lunar programme despite current Western sanctions in response to the assault in Ukraine.

"We are guided by the ambition of our ancestors to move forward, despite any difficulties and any attempts to prevent us in this movement from the outside," Putin said.

Russia stills pumps gas through Ukraine and Ukraine still earns $1.2B yearly from Russia—an economic absurdity amidst total war. While others decrease gas imports from Russia, Austria increases them, another absurdity. Germany now imports 0% of its gas from Russia. Austria still gets more than 50% from Russia. Austria is running out of excuses. Russian Gas supplies jump 33% in July 2023, according to Gazprom monthly report. Now, Russia - Ukraine are willing to stop the contract before it expires.

Latest CNN polling, majority of people in the US oppose Congress authorizing more funding for Ukraine in NATO's proxy war with Russia. But the weapons keep flowing to escalate the war, because, in the grand US "democracy", public opinion has zero impact on foreign policy.

About saving money, not only Russia amid war.

12 years ago, the Obama administration has announced its 2012 budget request, which if approved would freeze spending for NASA and other federal agencies at 2010 levels for the next fiscal year.

The 2012 budget request allocates $18.7 billion for NASA, the same amount the agency received in 2010. That's about $300 million less than NASA received in the president's 2011 budget request.

"The times today are very difficult fiscally, and we're going to live within a budget," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said at a press conference today. "What we do has to be affordable, sustainable, and it has to make sense."

The move is part of an overall five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending that the White House is proposing.

"The fiscal realities we face require hard choices," President Barack Obama wrote in his statement on the new budget. "A decade of deficits, compounded by the effects of the recession and the steps we had to take to break it, as well as the chronic failure to confront difficult decisions, has put us on an unsustainable course. That's why my budget lays out a path for how we can pay down these debts and free the American economy from their burden."

The new budget request applies to the 2012 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2011. This preliminary proposal, however, is likely to be modified by Congress.

The announcement comes at a time when a federal budget for 2011 has yet to be passed. The government, including NASA, is currently operating under a stopgap measure called a continuing resolution enacted while lawmakers try to agree on a federal budget.

The current continuing resolution is set to expire on March 4. Lawmakers are preparing another continuing resolution that would tide the government over until September.

The House Appropriations Committee aims to enact big spending cuts that would reduce NASA's proposed $19 billion budget for 2011 by $578 million as part of a wider plan to trim $100 billion from the national budget. That would be a $303 million drop from the previous year.

Some space supporters were hoping the new 2012 budget request would increase NASA's budget and fund it at levels adequate to accomplish the goals set forth in the NASA Authorization Act passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, in October 2010. That act recommended the agency receive a yearly budget of $19.45 billion – $750 million more than the 2012 budget blueprint lays out.

"I don't know what will be in the budget, but I hope that it will be adequate to move forward exploration and commercial crew to LEO [low-Earth orbit] development," former astronaut Leroy Chiao (Feb. 11, 2012). Chiao served as member of the independent panel Obama commissioned to review NASA's plans in 2009. "These are the two most important components of forward U.S. HSF [Human Space Flight] plans."

Although the new budget blueprint would roll back overall NASA spending, it does recommend boosts for some NASA sectors, including partnerships with commercial spaceflight companies.

The 2012 request allocates $850 million for NASA to partner with American companies to provide astronaut transportation to and from the International Space Station.

The blueprint also suggests $1 billion for space technology research and developments that could pave the way for future space missions, and $5 billion for robotic solar system exploration, which would include new astronomical observatories and Earth observation programs.

The proposal recommends $2.8 billion for developing a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule that would carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. Such a vehicle is required for the trips to an asteroid and Mars that the Obama administration has pushed for.

The space community is also looking to the 2012 budget request to offer guidance for a space agency that is trying to transition from the space shuttle era to a new future with a heightened focus on commercial spaceflight.

"The thing everyone wants is some clarity on what the next step is in building a next-generation launch vehicle for human spaceflight," said space policy expert Roger Handberg, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

Handberg was doubtful that the new document would be able to accomplish that goal, though, because he said NASA remains embroiled in a debate over whether and how to abandon the Constellation program, a moon-oriented exploration vision for NASA set up under the George W. Bush administration. Obama has proposed targeting human missions to an asteroid and Mars instead.

"The battle over the carcass of Constellation will continue, which means paralysis for the agency," Handberg told.

"The irony is that finally an administration reaches office that is serious about commercial spaceflight but runs into the buzz saw of constituent jobs as the barrier to change," he wrote. "Merging the commercial and the NASA worlds together is the optimal solution, but that will not occur until the reality becomes clear that NASA must be allowed to rise above constituent jobs as the sole reason for having a human spaceflight program."

NASA's budget expanded by more than 85% from 1998 through 2021. In some years, Congress appropriated more money for it than the president requested.⁸ NASA's budget was cut slightly during the 2008 financial crisis and during sequestration. A look at the year-by-year appropriations:

• FY 2021: $25.2 billion requested by the Trump administration

• FY 2020: $22.6 enacted, $23 billion requested by Trump⁹

• FY 2019: $21.5 billion, Trump requested $19.5 billion, Congress allocated more

• FY 2018: $19.5 billion, Trump requested $19.1 billion

• FY 2017: $19.2 billion, Obama requested $18.3 billion

• FY 2016: $19.3 billion, Obama requested $18.5 billion.

• FY 2015: $18.0 billion

• FY 2014: $17.6 billion

• FY 2013: $16.9 billion, Obama requested $17.7 billion, all programs were cut to comply with sequestration

• FY 2012: $17.8 billion, Obama requested $18.7 billion

• FY 2011: $18.4 billion, Obama requested $19 billion

• FY 2010: $18.7 billion

• FY 2009: $18.8 billion, President George W. Bush requested $17.6 billion, an additional $1 billion came from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding

• FY 2008: $17.1 billion, Bush requested $17.3 billion, Congress cut programs in response to the financial crisis

• FY 2007: $16.2 billion, Bush requested $16.8 billion

• FY 2006: $16.3 billion

• FY 2005: $16.1 billion

• FY 2004: $15.4 billion

• FY 2003: $15.3 billion

• FY 2002: $14.8 billion

• FY 2001: $14.3 billion

• FY 2000: $13.6 billion

• FY 1999: $13.7 billion

Back to Russia.

The long arm of the Kremlin meddles in the geopolitics of energy in many ways — not often in the most obvious ones. With Russia having weaponized oil and gas, the West needs to act before it does the same with uranium.

One of the epic transitions of the green energy and away from Russia gas migration are heat pumps. Nobody in Europe wants to be reliant on Russia again for gas and in order to achieve their carbon reduction goals the EU needs to replace all the oil/gas boilers, also because Ukraine war. There are literally hundreds of millions go these boilers across Europe. Equally the HVAC install base across Europe is low, the step up in summer heat will drive the installation of air conditioners as a climate change resilience adaption measure, not to mention all those EV needing to charge every night and all the new data centres for AI. All of it powered by Green energy (somehow), so the grid solar and wind infrastructure build out will have to be mind boggling all subsidised by government. So LK-99 couldn't have come at a better time. As climate change ramps (I can hear my sceptic friends groaning) whole sectors will be uplifted, as capital flows to them so they can execute the change. German production of heat pumps is at a record high in response to the European energy crisis and growing climate change mitigation & adaptation efforts across Europe!

Thanks gas and oil, Russia still continued Space Program. China’s exports to Russia jumped 52% in July 2023. The Russian government offers Africa only miniscule amounts of aid and very little trade. But autocratic African leaders favor Russia nonetheless because it sends them arms and mercenaries to help them stay in power regardless of public support.

Aug 7th, 2023, Iran and Russia have reached preliminary agreements on an energy hub - General Director of the National Iranian Gas Company. "The Russian proposal is to create an energy hub between Iran and Russia, agreements have been reached in this regard, expert assessments and negotiations are ongoing," Majid Chegani said.

In June, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, described the upcoming launch as high-risk.

"This mission involves landing at the south pole. No one in the world has ever done such things," he said during a meeting with Putin.

"The probability of successful completion of such missions is estimated at around 70 percent."

Ahead of Friday's launch, local authorities said that residents would be evacuated from the village of Shakhtinsky in the far-eastern region of Khabarovsk, where the rocket's boosters are expected to fall.

During the last Soviet Moon mission in 1976, the Luna-24 brough back samples of lunar soil.

With Sputnik, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite into space in 1957 and later sent into orbit the first animal, a dog named Laika, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova.

But compared with the Soviet era, modern Russia has struggled to innovate and its space industry is fighting to secure state funding while the Kremlin prioritises military spending.

Russia's space agency is still reliant on Soviet-designed technology and has faced a number of setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches.

Moscow is also falling behind in the global space race, facing tough competition from the United States and China.

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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free. Writer actually facing 12 years attack-simultaneously (physically terror, cyberattack terror) by his (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM (all of them actually indebted to me, at least get a very cheap book). 2 times, my mom nearly got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. Once assassin, forever is assassin, that I was facing in years. I push myself to be (keep) dovish, pacifist, and you can read my pacifist tone in every note I write. A framing that myself propagated for years.

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