Russia To Have Its Own Space Station
The Milky Way, as seen from the International Space Station. Reuters

With space travel being all the rage these days with every developing nation; Russia is considering joining the space bandwagon as well. Not to be outdone by the United States, with whom currently, political relations are strained, to say the least, Russia announced that it has intentions to perhaps build a space station of it's own.

Roscomos, the Russian state space agency has to date collaborated with NASA's International Space Station (ISS) in all their past ventures into space. However, the increasing political tensions between the two countries have caused somewhat of a rift in the collaborations. In fact, officials in Moscow are doubtful as to how long one can expect to be continued to collaborate with the ISS.

As a result, the powers that be in the motherland are considering building their own space station that would perhaps even give the ISS a run for its money. Oleg Ostapenko, the head of Roscomos, reportedly said, "I confirm we are considering such an option. This is a possible direction of development." It was also hinted that the new Russian space station would be utilised to make headway in the journey to reach Mars and provide more data.

It is still unclear, however, as to how the nation intends to fund such an elaborate project, especially with economists predicting Russia to be plunged into recession once again in the near future. While Washington has reportedly declared its interest in keeping the hundred billion dollar worth ISS active until at least 2024; Russian officials have been known to state that they would reject any offers from the US to prolong their operations in cooperation with the ISS.

With Russia's recent unsucessful attempts in space explorations, a spanking new space station would certainly not be unwelcome to the scientific community in the country.