Agence France-Presse:

The only moon landing in history is NASA's Apollo expedition in 1968.

Well, it did happen a long time ago. Probably the twit who wrote this hadn't even been born. Anyway, I wonder where the Russians will get the money for a manned moon mission?

Huh. Turns out the real reason Apollo 13 couldn't land was because Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 had taken all the parking spots, and had left early to beat the rush.

In response to the last question, possibly from their oil revenues which are said to be considerable.

I think they'll continue to find better things to do with them, Mark.

Just to infuriate Mark, I'm going to predict that the first Russian to land on the Moon will get there through private enterprise, rather than a government project (and may very well be a US citizen).

Ditto the first Chinese.

and may very well be a US citizen

Heck yes. About 10 years ago I recall reading that 5% of all new physics professors hired in the United States were Russian immigrants.

Soon all your good Russian brains will belong us.

Rand, your idea of what constitutes a "better thing" might be difffernt from Putins.

Edward, actually you might be right, but only in a croney capitalist sense.

So, now Putin is your Great White Hope? :-)

As usual, Mark, your faith in crony "capitalism" is touching.

They don't have a shuttle; (thats probably a benefit for them) but is Soyuz sufficiently advanced to support the type of launch platform. One recalls their last attempt collapsed in the late 60s; due to catastrophic failure with their
heavy booster answer to the Saturn V.

Yes, trying to copy the Saturn V was a mistake, but there's no reason to think the Russian Space Agency is going to make the same mistake again.

RSA's Vision of space exploration is lightly more modern than NASA's. According to Novosti, Perminov said that, "after the ISS is put out of operation, Russia plans to deploy a platform in a low-earth orbit to assemble spacecraft."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070831/75959612.html

That would enable RSA to conduct lunar flights without super heavy lifters.

Such an approach might allow RSA to do lunar flights for an order of magnitude less money than NASA's ESAS, but one order of magnitude is not enough. Even with that advantage, they do not expect to establish their first manned base on the Moon until 2027-2032.

I'm sure Mark will make a big deal out of how Putin is going to establish a lunar soviet 20-25 years from now and how we must increase government spending so NASA can do the same. But RSA and NASA hope to develop just one new generation of vehicles in that time. Private enterprise may go through 5 or 6 generations in that time. It might be quaint to see NASA astronauts still flying Apollo capsules in 2030, but innovation and evolution are what will open the space frontier.