Russian space chief talks Mars on Gagarin spaceflight anniversary

Anatoly Perminov head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) speaks today, the 49th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, to the Russia 24 news channel. For those of you who can't speak Russian he tells tham that people could fly to Mars as early as 2020 and that Russian scientists are developing a nuclear energy source that could reduce the travel time to the Red planet by 20 times

While this report on Roscosmos' website is the first this blogger has seen that mentions an activity planned for next year on the 50th anniversary of humanity's first flight into space, thanks to Yuri Gagarin, his Vostok 1 capsule and the Soviet space programme and its leader Sergei Korolev