Well said.

Actually it’s down to production which is maxed out at the moment [1] to four Soyuz and six (?) Progresses p.a. However the production line is OLD and the techniques inefficient. Whilst the next launch will be in a new model: TMA-01M, this is only a tweak tried out with the earlier Progresses; I would expect their NextGen system to match the industrial capacity of the Chinese ‘knock-off’ but with a much more sophisticated DSV.

As to destination, the Russians are still slowly working to the goal of a long term “Piloted Complex” (= Spacecraft) capable of taking the Hammer and Sickle to Mars the Red Planet! And a facility at which to assemble said craft: OPSEK. You will note that the more recent parts of the Russian segment evolve into OPSEK and that the Europeans are interested in the Russian plans. Having been burned too many times by the USA, I dont blame them.
As to lunar orbital tourism: 100 million dollars. Probably more now….

[1] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/06/19/russia-expand-soyuz-production-consolidate-space-industry/
[2] http://www.russianspaceweb.com/acts.html

PS we are discovering the Heliopause at the moment. And never in my wildest of dreams would I have imagined a lander on Titan! Pluto: 1758 days; Vesta 299 days…
Be grateful for the toys you have got and play with them rather than demand for the latest shiny piece of junk / cartoon tie-in.
It aint in the family budget.

“Leaving aside the fact that we have been back to the moon — just without your beloved astronauts — sure, we could send up astronauts to huddle in $50 billion RVs on the moon.”

Maybe you missed it, but Dennis was talking about human missions, not robotics. My point then was about human lunar missions, not robotic missions, and how the only thing holding us back from returning U.S. citizens to the surface of the Moon is the lack of desire to spend the money required.

So apparently, you were agreeing with me.

Leaving aside the fact that we have been back to the moon — just without your beloved astronauts — sure, we could send up astronauts to huddle in $50 billion RVs on the moon. We could also build a shopping mall at the bottom of the ocean, a single building that fills up every block of Manhattan, a rock-and-roll museum a mile underneath the earth, and a 20-lane racetrack around the entire circumference of Australia.

All sorts of fun we could have if economics didn’t matter.

“While Russia seems to also have lost its gutts for deep space, presently it wouldnt take much to launch a Soyuz out for a lunar orbit mission, or even a swing around free return trajectory.”

I think there is no question that the Russians are capable of doing that, so it’s not a question of whether they could, but whether they want to spend the money to do it. It’s the same for the U.S., in that we’ve always had the ability to go back to the Moon, it’s just that we chose not to spend the money to do it.

People keep thinking that this is some great mystery, but it’s not. It’s just a matter of money. Until you convince your Congressional reps to pony up the big bucks, it will never happen. Get busy Dennis.

Why? What’s in it for them?? Governments are no longer going to do stuff just for the sake of it. The U.S. seems intent on doing stuff with NASA simply to keep people employed. The Russians have no real long-term goals that are apparent. The Chinese are simply developing a technological capability for the Earth science, military applications. The Indians again like the Chinese. The Japanese a little more ambitious but again based around science.
Note that no government is interested in getting people into space except for where they are currently politically contracted ie. the ISS. As for ‘exploration’, welll you can forget that – insufficient short-term return – no cost/benefit return.

That leaves you with commercial and the ‘only’ organisation actually spending money on that is Bigelow. SpaceX may be but it’s not a stated priiority at this point.

Oh and Chis, it isn’t sci-fi. You’ve got to have the technology before you can go anywhere. That’s what the Obama plan was tryng to put in place.

Oh well!!