RUSSIAN scientists have taken one small step back in time by using a communist-era gravity machine ahead of their planned mission to the moon.

Putin's boffins are using the 1970s Selen technology to discover how easy it would be for their cosmonauts to walk on the lunar surface and get out of a rover vehicle.

4 Roscosmos has revealed plans to send a manned mission to the moon between 2025 and 2045 Credit: Pockocmoc

4 Boffins are using 1970s tech to discover how easy it would be for their cosmonauts to walk on the lunar surface Credit: Pockocmoc

Experts from the state-backed space agency Roscosmos also claim RSC Energia are working on a new spacesuit to make moon walking easier.

Newly released CGI footage appears to show to cosmonauts standing on top of a hill which overlooks a large lunar settlement.

The company’s deputy head of research Alexander Poleshuk said: “We conduct these experiments in order to see if there’s anything we can recommend to the system developers in terms of streamlining work on the moon.

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“After all, walking on the moon in a spacesuit is not easy – rovers or special forms of transport are needed, and you need to be able to get into them and sit in a comfortable position, then find space to fit all your equipment.

“In order to get all of this right, practice is needed.”

After finishing their experiments experts will plan the mission logistics before developing lunar bases, runway facilities and other critical parts.

4 Some say the planned mission to the moon is totally 'outdated' Credit: Pockocmoc

4 RSC Energia are working on a new spacesuit to make moon walking easier Credit: Pockocmoc

Roscosmos has revealed plans to send a manned mission to the moon between 2025 and 2045 – some 60 years after Neil Armstrong's Apollo mission ended the space race between the US and Soviet Russia.

Russian Academy of Cosmonautics member Yury Karash previously said: “Back in the 1960s the Soviet Union was competing head-to-head with the United States.

“But it is hard to find a better way to hurt Russian prestige and emphasise Russian technological backwardness than by sending cosmonauts to the Moon around 2030, 60 years after Apollo.”