None of this may be confirmed, after all.

It is usually potential that Borisov was merely fired due to the widely poor state of affairs at Roscosmos, which is saddled with myriad issues, together with: corruption, a scarcity of funding, low wages and poor worker morale, Russia’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine draining expertise, a reliance on know-how half a century previous, and shrinking industrial markets.

The underside line is that Russia merely doesn’t have the state price range to help important investments in its area packages, and the nation’s technical efforts are bent on weapons quite than spaceflight. It additionally has just about no industrial area market, as every part is managed by Roscosmos or its state-owned subsidiaries.

The Ukraine warfare has exacerbated Russia’s decline in area. The nation’s area program survived the breakup of the Soviet Union 1 / 4 of a century in the past by partnering with the West. It shaped the coalition of countries that constructed the Worldwide House Station, with NASA offering important monetary help. European corporations purchased launches on the Soyuz rocket. American launch corporations purchased Russian rocket engines. However most of that’s over now, and the longer term seems pretty bleak, with Europe closing off its markets to Russian markets and NASA and Roscosmos possible ending their area station partnership by 2030.

Cows on Mars

Within the meantime, Putin seems to be shuffling chairs at Roscosmos and daydreaming about missions to Mars.

Throughout a rally with school college students within the metropolis of Yaroslavl, Putin was speaking about how Russia would advance into the longer term. As a part of this, he awarded the “Presidential Prize” to a number of younger scientists, together with an aerospace engineer named Natalia Cherkashina. She received an award for an anti-radiation composite materials.

“Natalia Igorevna, are you able to please inform me if right now’s trendy radiation-protective composites will enable, say, cows to fly to Mars and return? Or bunnies? Or cats? Or canine?” Putin asked.

“Why not? In fact they are going to,” she replied.

In a while, Putin stated he was simply kidding round. “I used to be joking about cows; we want cows right here to make cheese and milk,” he stated. Underneath his watch, Russia’s area program has change into one thing of a joke, too.