Russia says "I want a base on the moon, too!"

With Russia's announcement that it has plans to build its own lunar base by 2027, let me be the first to say will the last one off the planet please turn off the lights? Perhaps the more important question is (avoiding the obvious "In Soviet Russia, Moon builds base on YOU!") where are we going to put everyone?

At last count, now including Russia, there are plans for at least six lunar bases:

• The European Space Agency wants a small inhabitable base by 2020


• China has plans for manned missions with rumours of a 2020 Chinese lunar base (all the better to exploit your natural resources study you with...)


• India doesn't want to get left behind and is also shooting "me too" style for an India lunar base by 2020


• NASA has its own plans for a US lunar base by 2024


• Japan will be fighting with Russia for the last scraps of real estate as it hopes to set up its Japanese lunar base sometime in 2025.
  

It leaves me wondering just how much lunar-base friendly real estate is available up there, and will the wars of the middle of this century be not only about fresh water and trade barriers but also about non-terrestrial real estate?

I guess it must be a good time to be an aeronautical engineer though.

Moonbase Monorail originally uploaded to Flickr by william.ward. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution Sharealike 2.0 licence.