We want to believe that Russia will make many more breakthroughs on a planetary scale. Commentary from Nina Kozlova in Federal Press

Development of manned flights in the Soviet Union occurred in stages from first manned spacecrafts and orbital stations to multipurpose space manned orbital complexes. Over decades the Soviet Union was proud of the successes of national cosmonautics, i.e. the flight of the world's first female cosmonaut V. Tereshkova, the spacewalk, and the longest flight in the history of space travels. Nina Kozlova, General Director of FinExpertiza, told about what things make us proud of the space industry today.

Нина Nina Kozlova

General Director of FinExpertiza

- Space was difficult and expensive by then, it remains so now. In the nineties, funding declined so much that it seemed that all the legacy received from the USSR would be irretrievably lost. We survived and did something only due to the international projects. Today, we have not only preserved the number of cosmodromes, but also multiplied the legacy. The number of launches is also comparable, and the need for them has been reduced due to the increase of the service life of satellites.

In the space industry, more than 250 thousand people work and, most importantly, there is an influx of young professionals. Russia is a leader in manned cosmonautics and launching into orbit. GLONASS is one of the world's two global satellite systems. Our Radioastron is the world's largest telescope with a resolution that is 1000 times greater as compared to Hubble, and the floating spaceport 'Morskoy start' belonging to RKK 'Energia' is the only one in the world. From a practical point of view, our 40% of the space launch market, according to one of the top managers of the space industry in 2014, accounted for only 2% of the world space market, compared to 70% in the United States. And although the financing of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 has been reduced from 2.85 to 1.406 trillion rubles, we hope that Russia will make many breakthroughs on a planetary scale with the significance comparable to the discovery of space for all mankind by the Soviet Union.