I wonder whether they will try to use this as a way of selling the Galileo GPS project, and if so, how they will do it. They could befuddle the politicians by claiming that Galileo will be a prerequisite of Mars exploration for (insert technical reason here), perhaps something to do with the polarity of the sub-space energy matrix thing thing, or they could argue that it will provide excellent hands-on experience of project management etc.

The Russians still have the world's best operational rocket for heavy-lift. Why not use it?

Of course it is, why else would they enter the Eurovision Song Contest?

And perhaps we could get the other Eurovision states such as Isreal, etc. to help out?