(DBWI) Happy Thirtieth Birthday Lunagrad!

[Zor]

On March 10th, 1979, the soviet LOK-5 spacecraft sent down it's payload to Mare Moscoviense, delivering the Lunagrad-I Module onto the Lunar Surface, three years latter they had completed the beginings first perminant lunar base on the sight, which would grow into the largest human settlement on the moon, with some 1,000 residents living inside her. Lunagrad-I also prompted a new age of the space race, incouraging the United States to set up their own lunar base shortly after, as well as the EU and China in the 1990s and 2000s. My hats off to the brave engineers and scientists that allowed for mankind to reach and lay claim to the moon.

Zor

 

[lord of war]

yes i support them the soviets are winning i think that world is looking to a bright future... communism and capitalism working together who would have thought...

 

[Sachyriel]

Happy Birthday Lunagrad! Has anyone tried the delicious red icing?

 

[DrakonFin]

Certainly, congratulations are in order. I' ll commemorate the anniversary with the Finno-Soviet Friendship Society this weekend in Helsinki, they have a big party planned.

Lunagrad is a great example of Finno-Soviet friendship and co-operation, and I am not just talking about all the Finnish electric components our industries have furnished for Soviet spacecraft since the 70s. Lunagrad was the destination of the first Finnish cosmonaut, Paavo Janhunen, in 1985, and three others were to follow him already during the old Interkosmos program.

(Too bad that first journey had to end up in tragedy and the death of Col. Janhunen, along with the rest of the international crew as LOK-13 was destroyed during re-entry. August 7th is still a sort of semi-official day of mourning here.)

 

[B_Munro]

And the interesting thing is that this all probably depended on a hunting accident: Brezhnev, as anyone knows, was never really a space enthusiast, and became even less so after the US made it to the moon first. If he hadn't been accidentally mistaken for a bear while visiting Ceausescu's hunting reserve, he might have remained in power for another decade and the Soviet manned space program could have dried up.

(And it's really amazing that the Soviets stubbornly stuck with supporting the program through the 80's in spite of an exquisitely painful "restructuring" of their economy. Perhaps it was the one thing that Russians, standing in line for their potatoes, could take real national pride in).

Bruce

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

I can tell you exactly what will happen!!! Absolutely NOTHING!!! Just think about the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in the New World in 1992, the 15th birthday of the U.S. Space Station Freedom in 2008, or even the 100th birthday of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Except for a few really cheesy TV special, David Copperfield trick, or even the usual Franklin Mint Commemorative coin, nothing big happens. Since this is the Soviets we are dealing with, it will be even more dull, with a military parade in Red Square with Premier Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the usual forgettable speech about the "triumph of Marxist/ Stalinist socialism..."

 

[B_Munro]

I can tell you exactly what will happen!!! Absolutely NOTHING!!! Just think about the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in the New World in 1992, the 15th birthday of the U.S. Space Station Freedom in 2008, or even the 100th birthday of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Except for a few really cheesy TV special, David Copperfield trick, or even the usual Franklin Mint Commemorative coin, nothing big happens.

Well, everyone is all het up about Mars nowadays: it looks like it's go for 2012 now that the Russians have worked out the kinks in their nuclear propulsion system and the US had finally designed a lander capable of dealing with Mars's "there-but-almost-not-there" atmosphere. The Moon is currently Old News.

Since this is the Soviets we are dealing with, it will be even more dull, with a military parade in Red Square with Premier Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the usual forgettable speech about the "triumph of Marxist/ Stalinist socialism..."

Yes, the man should be in the dictionary under the category of "double-think": the Soviet economy is almost as capitalist as the Chinese nowadays, but they still talk as if it were the 60's, and make themselves champions of third-world anti-Americanism while the Soviet Union is nowadays mostly held together by Russian nationalism.

Bruce

 

[Puget Sound]

Well, everyone is all het up about Mars nowadays: it looks like it's go for 2012 now that the Russians have worked out the kinks in their nuclear propulsion system and the US had finally designed a lander capable of dealing with Mars's "there-but-almost-not-there" atmosphere. The Moon is currently Old News.



Yes, the man should be in the dictionary under the category of "double-think": the Soviet economy is almost as capitalist as the Chinese nowadays, but they still talk as if it were the 60's, and make themselves champions of third-world anti-Americanism while the Soviet Union is nowadays mostly held together by Russian nationalism.

Bruce

I find it extremely ironic that the Soviet Union only consists of Russia and Belorussia nowadays...

 

[B_Munro]

I find it extremely ironic that the Soviet Union only consists of Russia and Belorussia nowadays...

OOC: I really doubt a Soviet Union that had suffered an economic collapse and territorial breakup as severe as OTL could maintain much of a space program...

Bruce

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Well, everyone is all het up about Mars nowadays: it looks like it's go for 2012 now that the Russians have worked out the kinks in their nuclear propulsion system and the US had finally designed a lander capable of dealing with Mars's "there-but-almost-not-there" atmosphere. The Moon is currently Old News.

Well, the major science is being conducted on Space Station Freedom. The biotechnology discoveries on the Jefferson Module certainly have led to more pharmaceutical and medical treatments than anything designed aboard the Lunagrad I base. The Hubble module has produced more visual additions to astronomy than the supposed telescopes on Lunagrad. The scientific achievements of Lunagrad are way overrated according to New Scientist and Scientific-American....

Yes, the man should be in the dictionary under the category of "double-think": the Soviet economy is almost as capitalist as the Chinese nowadays, but they still talk as if it were the 60's, and make themselves champions of third-world anti-Americanism while the Soviet Union is nowadays mostly held together by Russian nationalism.

Bruce

Chris Farley had the "dead-on" impersonation of Premier Zhirinovsky, while he was on Saturday Night Live (NBC-TV), complete with his wild reqular claims to Alaska and Poland....

 

[B_Munro]

Well, the major science is being conducted on Space Station Freedom. The biotechnology discoveries on the Jefferson Module certainly have led to more pharmaceutical and medical treatments than anything designed aboard the Lunagrad I base. The Hubble module has produced more visual additions to astronomy than the supposed telescopes on Lunagrad. The scientific achievements of Lunagrad are way overrated according to New Scientist and Scientific-American....

"Supposed" telescopes? They do have telescopes, you know, just not very big ones, (Shipping -intact- a _big_ lens is difficult) and sun-blind 50% of the time: and Lunagrad has contributed more practical knowledge on how to live in an environment as hostile as the moon than anyone else: admittedly, they haven't given us anything much that is _new_ since the late 90's.

And the biotech done on SSF is overrated, too: certainly nothing more than a big biotech lab on earth. (Repeat after me: zero gravity does not magically lead to Marvellous New Discoveries). The only _big_ contibutions they have made is in research into bugs too dangerous to easily handle on earth, and if some of this work isn't covertly funded by the department of defense, I'm a monkey's uncle.

Chris Farley had the "dead-on" impersonation of Premier Zhirinovsky, while he was on Saturday Night Live (NBC-TV), complete with his wild reqular claims to Alaska and Poland....

He's just playing to the Russian nationalists who are his biggest supporters: the Russians washed their hands of the place after the '92-'93 clusterfuck of an occupation, and it's too valuable as a neutral buffer between Soviet territory and the EU.

Bruce

 

[Zor]

Well, the major science is being conducted on Space Station Freedom. The biotechnology discoveries on the Jefferson Module certainly have led to more pharmaceutical and medical treatments than anything designed aboard the Lunagrad I base. The Hubble module has produced more visual additions to astronomy than the supposed telescopes on Lunagrad. The scientific achievements of Lunagrad are way overrated according to New Scientist and Scientific-American

Even so, Lunagrad has the most developed ore proccessing and manufacuturing plant off the planet earth and with the current Lunagrad industrial expansion project, the will soon be able to put spacecraft and moduels for space station construction into space at a fraction of the price than can be done now.

Zor

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Even so, Lunagrad has the most developed ore proccessing and manufacuturing plant off the planet earth and with the current Lunagrad industrial expansion project, the will soon be able to put spacecraft and moduels for space station construction into space at a fraction of the price than can be done now.

Zor

That is assuming that the political pressures at home don't force the sale and/or dismantling of Lunagrad. Currently there is talk that Sony/Mitsubishi has stated that they are currently in talks to purchase the program. Considering that the Japanese have purchased Rockefeller Square in New York City, along with most of the land up for grabs in Hawaii, another massive purchase would certainly sound reasonable....

OOC: This assumes a Japan that didn't suffer the "Lost Decade" due to the floating of the Soviet ruble in the 1990s....

 

[e of pi]

I'd heard Google was looking to relocate part of their server farms to an outpost near Lunagrad---see their Copernicus program page for more: http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html. Honestly, I might head out there myself after I graduate. They may computer whizzes, but I'm betting they can't refit an airlock on the fly in 24 hours or recalibrate a bad enviro circulation grid. Extra-terrestrial engineering: like being a plumber, but pays better and requires at least a B.A.