Russian Space Industry Reviving

Russia’s space agency submitted a proposal to its government outlining a new space exploration plan on Wednesday. The proposal is an ambitious bid to keep Russia as one of the world’s top three space powers.

Since 2011, Russia has suffered a string of failures in its space industry, including the loss of three Glonass navigation satellites and the Phobos-Grunt Mars probe. There was also the failed launch of a Progress cargo ship.

The strategy aims to wipe the past away. It prioritizes a step-by-step modernization of the space industry, the development of a new space vehicle and the exploration of the moon and Mars.

The country is already collaborating with China and the EU to carry out the Mars-500 project, which simulated flying to and landing on the red planet. According to a Reuters report, from 2005 to 2010, Russia increased space spending by around 40 percent year on year.

The plan does have its critics, but if the plan is accepted it will give Russia a boost of prestige.

Space programs aren’t cheap and don’t return much economic fruit; however, they have been used by national governments to demonstrate power and prestige. That America’s own space program is facing major financial cutbacks while Russia, China and the EU are ramping up theirs says a lot about America’s power.

These space programs are a powerful show of which nations are rising in power and prestige and which ones are falling. The Bible prophesies of this trend, calling it the “times of the Gentiles.” For more information on this prophesied time and implications of a declining U.S. power, read our article “The Times of the Gentiles.”