Feels It Must Reduce Cost Of Flights In Response To Successful Booster Recovery

The successful recovery by SpaceX on land of a Falcon 9 booster following an orbital insertion mission apparently has the Russians concerned about what they charge for spaceflight.

The goal of Elon Musk and SpaceX is to reduce the cost of getting payloads ... both manned and unmanned ... into orbit. And Bloomberg News reports that Russia is now considering how to make its flights cheaper to maintain its market share ... knowing that such launches are a cash cow for Moscow.

While Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of defense in Russia, told Rossiya 24 TV in an interview that Musk's work will be treated with respect, "competitors are stepping on our toes," he said.

Bloomberg reports that Russia's space industry has been hit by the double-whammy of chronic under-financing and the loss of key scientists after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But despite those issues and several botched launches in recent years, Russia remains one of the key players in the multibillion-dollar civilian space industry.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.spacex.com, http://en.federalspace.ru