Firebird wrote:Very impressive. It does show that, despite all the bitching about Russia, Russia does actually get things done.
I suppose its one of many Russian "megaprojects" - Sochi, Skolkovo, the World Cup, Moscow City skyscraper district.
I wonder what the next megaprojects will be? The highspeed railway to China? Vladivostock as a true "3rd capital"? Another skyscraper centre for Moscow? The new Parliament that is planned?
Finally, it will be interesting to see how the Cosmodrome affects Russia in practice? Will Russia leap ahead as the key player in putting satellites in orbit? Or will Vostochniy be a massive tourist attraction? Perhaps a supercomputing centre? Its a big investment, so it should be much more than just impressive pictures..!
Vostochniy is part of restructuring of Russia's space infrastructure. Once Cosmodrome, Angara series and PTK-NP (Soyuz capsule replacement) are up and running the budget will be freed up for new scientific projects like manned missions beyond Earth orbit, new space stations and new scientific probes. The last one is most adversely affected ATM but in ten years there should be lots of new scientific missions launched by Russia.
As for tourism, I don't know about the rest of you but I plan on being on first available flight to Vostochniy...
That place will be tourist bonanza, no doubt about it.