Is Vlad keen on a trip? Putin eyes up cosmonaut uniform as his deputy premier sets out plans to colonise space and declares 'We are coming to the Moon FOREVER'

Kremlin announced the 26-year plan in state-run newspaper this morning



Deputy PM says moon is only realistic source of minerals and resources



First mission to launch in 2016 and 'base will be up and running by 2040'

Comments came as Putin marked Yuri Gagarin's flight into space



The West fears Russia is poised to invade Ukraine, but it seems the Kremlin has a bigger conquest in its sights - the Moon.

Moscow today set out plans to conquer and colonise space, including a permanent manned moon base.

Deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin said: 'We are coming to the moon forever.'

His comments came as President Vladimir Putin toured the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Moscow. On Saturday, Russia celebrates Cosmonaut Day marking Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight into space on April 12, 1961.

Moon mission: Vladimir Putin (left) looks at exhibits as he visits the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum in Russia. Currently, Russia has plans to launch three lunar spacecraft - two to the surface and one to orbit - by the end of the decade

President Putin was taking the tour as one of his deputy premiers, Dmitry Rogozin, claimed that Russia had an eye on the Moon once again

The Russian President enjoyed the visit while with a group of children. Currently Russia has plans to launch three lunar spacecraft - two to the surface and one to orbit - byt he end of the decade

The final frontier: A Russian Soyuz rocket takes off for the International Space Station last month. The Kremlin has announced plans to o build a super-heavy carrier rocket that will propel its cosmonauts to Mars

In an article in the government's own newspaper headlined 'Russian Space', he spoke of targeting Mars and other 'space objects' as future priorities.

'Flights to Mars and asteroids in our view do not contradict exploration of the moon, but in many senses imply this process.'

He wrote of 'colonisation of the moon and near-moon space'.

In the next 50 years, manned flights are unlikely beyond 'the space between Venus and Mars'.

'We are coming to the Moon forever': Russian deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin first outlined his country's plans for lunar exploration and colonisation last month

But 'it is quite possible to speak about exploration of Mars, flights to asteroids and flights to Mars'.

The essential first step as a base for research and experiments was the moon, said Rogozin, who is in overall charge of Russia's space and defence industries, and was recently targeted for EU and US sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis.

'The moon is not an intermediate point in the race,' he wrote in official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, conjuring an impression of a new space race with America.

'It is a separate, even a self-contained goal.

'It would hardly be rational to make some ten or 20 flights to the moon, and then wind it all up and fly to the Mars or some asteroids.

'This process has the beginning, but has no end. We are coming to the moon forever.'

Currently, Russia has plans to launch three lunar spacecraft - two to the surface and one to orbit - by the end of the decade.

The first mission, the long-delayed Luna-25, is slated for launch in 2016, to research the moon's south pole.

The next two missions will include an orbiter to monitor the moon in 2018, and a year later a polar lander with a drill will search for water ice.

MEANWHILE NASA LOSES FUNDING



The Kremlin's space-age boasts come less than three years after the U.S. was forced to start hitching flights on Russian rockets. Nasa ended its space shuttle programme in 2011 and has faced years of funding cuts. Just two weeks ago a Soyuz rocket carried two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut to the International Space Station (above), despite the crisis in Crimea. But there could be hope of a new space race - as Nasa announced this week it hopes to land humans on Mars within 20 years.



By 2040, Russia plans to create a lunar base for long-term missions to the Earth's natural satellite.

Rogozin said that the moon is the only realistic source to obtain water, minerals and other resources for future space missions.

A lunar laboratory complex will also be used for testing new space technologies.

He promised the development of 'a super-heavy rocket for lunar missions and to the Mars in the future'.

Rogozin claimed sanctions including the termination of space cooperation announced by the US 'can contribute' to a stronger Russian space industry.

It will force Russia 'to create a strategy of development of Russian manned space flights, independent from unreliable international partners'.

He stressed: 'We should not be afraid to dream, to raise the bar as high as possible for our future development.

'Russia has everything needed for a new breakthrough in space research.

'All we need is to learn how to combine idealism and pragmatism and how to properly organise our business.'