Don’t you think that the fact that the mission was unmanned meant that they knew that they’re not ready for manned ones yet? So nobody was rushing, as you put it.
Manned lunar lander is a mich complex piece of technology which needs to be developed from scratch. It also needs a much more powerful rocket which Russia don’t have either. It’s at least a decade of extra R&D time even if they get all the funding they need and magically get rid of corruption (which obviously won’t happen).
It’s unmanned not because they chose it but because they are literally incapable of making a manned mission (at the very least for a couple of generations).
Well, “incapable” is still not true. Yet. There are people and even places. Fewer and fewer.
It’s just that nobody really wants anything. All those “big fish” of Russia’s current regime - they are corrupt in the full sense of the word, they don’t have any goals even of the tragicomedy “USSR restoration” sort. They are all simply being bought and sold by various more coherent dictatorships and factions around.
I mean, if there was hope for anything else, then that would reflect on the military and a military takeover would have already happened. Maybe not a good thing without context, but that would mean that Russia as a society is not in such deep apathy.
What? It clearly states in the article they knew it was risky… I would consider that rushing.
Sure, but it’s not rushing as in “let’s skip steps of the plan for the sake of time,” like it happened with, say, oceangate. It was a calculated risk.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/20/world/luna-25-spacecraft-moon-collision-intl/index.html
We’ve just had more information come out, and it appears you’re right about the rushing! I’ll eat crow on that
