The task to create a new orbital station has been set by the president. This week we will report plans on the development of piloted cosmonautics to the president.However, this announcement follows the second failure of a major rocket mission in the past month, the first being the Russian resupply spacecraft Progress 59 to the International Space Station followed by the failure of a Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite.
And all of this follows continued stories of budget cuts, construction problems at Vostochny Cosmodrome, the new space launch facility, and continued corruption within the space program. Quoting the Deputy Prime Minister again, he stated:
With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate.In these tight times, expansion and corruption are not good bed fellows. Russia needs to refocus its priorities and clean up its ranks if it wants to get off the ground.
Image Credit: Business Insider. Then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, second right, looks at a plan while visiting a site of a new launch facility, cosmodrome Vostochny, outside Uglegorsk, some 3,600 miles (5800 kilometers) east of Moscow, Russia, in 2010.