Putin to chair meeting on Russian cosmonautics

MOSCOW, April 7 (Itar-Tass) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will
chair meeting on the development of Russian cosmonautics in the city of
Gagarin on Thursday, April 7.
The discussion will focus on the current state and the future of
manned space missions and space exploration plans up to 2030, as well as
international cooperation in space, specifically further development of
the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS) and broad use
of space technologies for socio-economic development of the country.
The participants will discuss such projects as the expansion of
fundamental space studies, including the exploration of the Moon, Mars and
its satellites, the creation of new carrier rockets and a new spaceship
for manned missions to replace Soyuz ships.
This will require further development of infrastructure and
modernisation of the Baikonur and Plesetsk spaceports and the construction
of the new Vostochny launching site to give Russian independent access to
space.
More than 130 countries use the results of space research. However
only a few of them can handle science-intensive and costly tasks: Russia,
the United States, the European Union, France, China, Japan, and India.
And only three countries - Russia, the U.S. and China - have capabilities
for large-scale space activities in all areas.
Now that the U.S. has terminated its space shuttle programme, Russia
is the only country that can undertake regular manned space missions.