One shouldn’t expect Russian colonies on the Moon in the near future. The first base is planned to be established in 2030-2035. According to the Executive Director for Manned Space Programs of the Roskosmos State Corporation, Sergei Krikalev, landing on the Moon is planned by 2030; and a full-fledged moon base or a station will be established by 2035. The mission will be based on training cosmonauts to use new technical means and to achieve certain results by these means.
Meanwhile, the International Space Station is the main base of people of the Earth outside the planet. The manned orbit station is used as a multipurpose outer space complex. It is a joint international project which involves 14 countries: Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, the USA, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan.
Sergei Krikalev says that main works are carried out on the Earth orbit: “It is planned to continue work on the ISS, to complete the development and launch of new modules, even when the ISS program is over. At the moment it is not clear how it will be transformed. The program had to be over in 2015. According to the technical task, the station had to have been flying for 15 years. The period is over. Later the period was prolonged to 2020. We made the decision, and Americans had almost made the decision. The European Space Agency is discussing prolongation of the work until 2024, but it also requires a certain procedure to legalize the whole thing. A lot depends on the state of the station, on its goals.”
Krikalev states that the station which is flying around the Earth is used as a testing ground for long-haul flights. “An inflatable module is a technology which may be used for flights beyond the low Earth orbit. A deployment of a laboratory or residential infrastructure on the surface of the Moon is possible. Therefore, the station is actually used as a kind of a test platform.”
