Elon Musk taunted Russia and President Donald Trump has promised to beat him on Mars.
Moscow, Russia:
Moscow space officials said on Sunday they were puzzled by “hysteria” over the success of the SpaceX flight as Elon Musk mocked Russia and President Donald Trump vowed to beat him on Mars.
SpaceX made history on Saturday by becoming the first commercial enterprise in the world to send humans into orbit, which led to Russia losing its long-standing monopoly on space travel.
Musk threw Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian space chief, who once said that Washington may one day be forced to “deliver its astronauts to the ISS using a trampoline”.
“The trampoline works,” said Musk at a post-flight press conference with NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.
The two men laughed. “It’s an inner joke,” added Musk.
Rogozin remained remarkably silent for most of Sunday, but congratulated Bridenstine after the Crew Dragon capsule with two NASA astronauts docked at the ISS.
“It is prudent to congratulate you at this point on a successful launch and mooring. Well done!” he tweeted.
“Please send my sincere greetings to @elonmusk (I loved his joke) and to the @SpaceX team. Looking forward to future cooperation!”
In 2014, Rogozin, then deputy prime minister, mocked the lack of an American human space flight program after Washington announced new sanctions against Moscow, which included certain space industries.
While Russia hailed the United States, it also said on Sunday that it was puzzled by the frenzy sparked by what many hailed as the dawn of a new era.
“We don’t really understand the hysteria triggered by the successful launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft,” said Roscosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko.
“What should have happened a long time ago has happened,” he added, tweeting excerpts from Trump’s congratulatory speech.
New rocket tests
Speaking at the iconic Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the flawless launch of SpaceX, Trump promised that American astronauts would return to the Moon in 2024 “to establish a permanent presence and a launch pad to Mars”.
“And the first woman on the Moon will be an American and the first nation to land on Mars will be the United States of America,” he said.
“We are not going to be number two anywhere.”
The Russian space agency responded, saying it also had no plans to remain inactive.
“Already this year, we will test two new rockets and resume our lunar program next year,” tweeted Ustimenko.
He did not give details, but Rogozin said earlier that the country plans to launch a new test launch of the Angara heavy rocket this fall.
Rogozin also said that Russia is continuing to develop its new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat, also known as Satan 2 according to the NATO classification.
In 2018, President Vladimir Putin boasted that Sarmat was one of the new Russian weapons that could make NATO defenses obsolete.
Russia has enjoyed a monopoly for many years as the only country capable of transporting astronauts, and the launch on Saturday resulted in the loss of significant income. A seat in the Soyuz costs NASA about $ 80 million.
Roscosmos insisted that the United States still needed Moscow.
“It is very important to have at least two options for getting to the station. Because you never know …” said Ustimenko.
Some officials in Moscow have sought to downplay the American exploit.
“This is a flight to the International Space Station, not to Mars,” said Alexey Pushkov, a member of the upper house of parliament.
The Russian space program sent the first man into space in 1961 and launched the first satellite four years earlier.
But since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, it has been plagued by corruption scandals and a series of other setbacks, losing costly spacecraft and satellites in recent years.
The U.S. launch and Musk’s joke torched Russian social media, with spirits ridiculing Rogozin and the name of the Russian space chief on Twitter.
“How do you like it, Dmitry Rogozin?” insisted a critic.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
