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Next International Space Station Not in Orbit, But on Other Planet
6 March 2012
A future international space station (ISS) could be built on another planet rather than in the Earth’s orbit, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said March 2 at a meeting with space experts in Korolyov. "Is there a reason to continue the ISS program, as the station rotates around the Earth," Rogozin told a news conference about the future of space exploration."Maybe it would make more sense to implement these types of international projects by placing space stations on other planets," he said. "We should think about that."
Rogozin also addressed the Strategic Defense of Earth (SDE), saying that whereas presently, there is no immediate danger to Earth posed by asteroids, one should be prepared to deal with such dangerous situations in the future: "We have to imagine that our planet can collide with other celestial bodies like meteorites sometime in the future." Rogozin said there is no danger right now, but there could be one in a few years from now, and that scientists should be researching that. In this context, attention is being paid, reported RIA Novosti, to a warning by the Spanish observatory La Sagra, which has spotted an asteroid of up to 90 meters in diameter which will come very close to the Earth orbit in February 2013.
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