Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 22 – The Soviet Union launched the first satellite and competed with the United States for many years in the space race; but now when it comes to space exploration, Aleksey Kharlanov says, the Russian Federation has fallen out of international space competition and is now little more than “the younger brother” of China.
The expert at the Russian government’s Finance University says that this has happened as a result of Moscow’s failure to keep up, something that has resulted in what he calls “a catastrophic loss of competence” in this sector, something he doesn’t believe Russia will soon if ever escape (nakanune.ru/articles/124025/).
As a result, Kharlanov concludes, for the foreseeable future, Russia is unlikely to be able to do more than realize ideas developed by others rather than being, as was true half a century ago, the source of cutting-edge programs. As space becomes more important, that decline will be ever more widely felt not only in space but on the earth as well.
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