Monday, April 30, 2007

NASA denies snubbing Russia's Moon offer

Have you heard about this? You know, I can just imagine bonehead upper management at NASA doing this.... this is so typical of the bureaucracy that is rampant at NASA! (pac)

NASA denies that it has received any proposal from Russia to conduct joint Moon activities, despite media reports to the contrary. Still, some experts say the US agency is pursuing an increasingly isolationist stance and could be left behind as other nations forge new partnerships to explore space.

On Sunday, the Interfax news agency reported that Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, said that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the Moon. "We were ready to cooperate, but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," he said.

But NASA spokesperson Michael Braukus, speaking from the agency's headquarters in Washington, DC, said that NASA has not received such an offer from Russia. "Nothing was offered and nothing was declined," he told New Scientist. "We have not received a Moon cooperation offer from Roskomos."


Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

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