NASA declines Russia’s proposal for moon exploration

The head of Russia’s space agency Anatoly Perminov has said in a statement that US space agency NASA rejected their proposal that the two countries should work together on moon exploration.

He said: “We were ready to co-operate, but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves.”

NASA has already stated that they plan to start work on a base on the Moon when astronauts return there in 2020.

They are yet to comment on these statements from Russia on why they rejected the proposal of joint exploration.

NASA and Roskosmos have already worked together on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA continues to rely heavily on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry personnel and supplies to the ISS.

The problems for NASA were magnified during the times they were working on fixing the problems with their Space Shuttle fleet. Perminov added that they had signed on a “contract for nearly $1bn” with NASA to supply cargo shuttles between now and 2011 for the ISS.