mae@vygr.Sun.COM (Mike Ekberg, Sun {GPD-LEGO}) (06/09/89)
From the San Franscisco Examiner, Thursday, June 8, 1989. "More than half goes for military use" By Charles Mitchell United Press International Moscow - The Soviet Union, in its first public disclosure of how much it spends on the space program, revealed Wednesday that more than half of its annual $10.7 billion space budget is devoted to military use. The revelation shattered one of the Kremlin's most effective international propaganda claims, that the bulk of the program is devoted to peaceful civilian uses. Speaking at the first joint session of the Supreme Soviet, Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov also provided the first breakdown of the Soviet defense budget of $119.8 billion, first revealed by President Mikhail Gorbachev on May 30. Both the military and space budgets had been closely guarded Soviet secrets, hampering arms-reduction talks. Ryzhkov said $50.5 billion, or about 42 percent, of the military budget was used for procurement of arms, ammunition, and equipment. By comparison, the United States spends about 28.6 percent of its nearly $300 billion annual military budget on procurement. The prime minister said research, development and testing accounted for $23.7 billion; personnel and maintenance of the army and navy, including food and wages, $31.3 billion; and construction projects, $7.13 billion. Another $3.6 billion went to military pensions and $3.6 billion to miscellaneous expenses. Ryzhkov also said military expenses would be subject to public scrutiny and would be decided just as civilian expenditures are - by debate and necessity. In a startling disclosure, Ryzhkov said $6 billion, or 57 percent of the space budget, was devoted to military uses, dwarfing the $2.6 billion it says it spends on "science and economic" uses. The remainder of the space budget, $2 billion, is devoted to the trouble-plagued Soviet space shuttle, which made an unmanned test flight last year before plans to send it into orbit manned were suspended indefinitly. By comparison, NASA's budget for 1990 is $13 billion, excluding Air Force launches. The Soviet space program has come under increasing pressure from the press and citizen's groups to justify its expense. Compared with the U.S. space program, there have been few technical spinoffs that have benefited the economy. ... # mike (sun!mae), M/S 8-04 "The people are the water, the army are the fish" Mao Tse-tung
dls@mtgzz.att.com (d.l.skran) (06/12/89)
My guess is that these figures are low by a factor of 2 or 3 for propaganda purposes. They are totally unbelievable. Dale not Amon Skran
dow@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Black hole in space) (06/13/89)
can someone give me a semi close figure on what the cost is for one of the shuttles?
stramm@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Bernd Stramm) (06/14/89)
In article <5182@mtgzz.att.com> dls@mtgzz.att.com (d.l.skran) writes: > >My guess is that these figures are low by a factor of 2 or 3 for >propaganda purposes. They are totally unbelievable. > >Dale not Amon Skran Remember that their pricing is kind of artificial --- since they don't have a market economy, the government basically sets the prices of what they buy, so prices don't reflect "real" cost. ###################################################################### stramm%cs@ucsd.edu ARPA (new) | Bernd Stramm stramm@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu ARPA (old) | CSE Department, UC San Diego bstramm@ucsd BITNET | La Jolla, Ca 92093