With Congressional leaders urging the President to extend the shuttle in order to avoid dependence upon Russia, the former USSR is planing on assisting Cuba in helping the country build its own space center.(MSNBC) Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia's space agency chief said on Wednesday after talks in Caracas with Venezuelan and Cuban officials, Itar-Tass news agency reported. [...]
"We have held preliminary discussions about the possibility of creating a space center in Cuba with our help," the chief of Russia's Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass in Caracas.
"With our Cuban colleagues, we discussed the possibilities of joint use of space equipment...and the joint use of space communications systems," Perminov was quoted as saying.
While it will be interesting to see whether or not Russia decides to arm Cuba as they did in the past (in response to the US arming Poland), this may spark a renewed interest in Congress to maintain its status as a space power.
This could easily translate in not only more funds for NASA, but potentially a greater role for NewSpace as well.
With Russia hungry to establish its former glory (and China not too far behind them), we could see a global space race pitting the east against the west, which may ultimately translate into lunar colonies down the road (as mining helium-3 may require a human presence to keep away squatters).
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