NASA denies snubbing Russia's offer to jointly explore Moon

NASA has denied having received any proposal from Russia to conduct joint Moon activities, despite media reports to the contrary.

London, May 1 : NASA has denied having received any proposal from Russia to conduct joint Moon activities, despite media reports to the contrary.

NASA spokesperson Michael Braukus has said the agency never received any such offer from Russia.

"Nothing was offered and nothing was declined. We have not received a Moon cooperation offer from Roskomos," said Braukus.

On Sunday, Interfax news agency reported Roskosmos chief, Anatoly Perminov, as saying, that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the Moon, but that NASA had refused it.

"We were ready to cooperate, but for unknown reasons, the United States said they would undertake this programme themselves," said Perminov.

Space experts say NASA is pursuing an increasingly isolationist stance that could leave it trailing behind, as other nations forge new partnerships to explore space.

George Abbey of Rice University in Houston, Texas, who directed NASA's Johnson Space Center from 1995 to 2001, said NASA is shifting away from international cooperation, adding that it should be working with other countries on all aspects of the return to the Moon mission- including transportation.

According to him, the US government has tightened its restrictions on the exchange of technical information with other countries, which is making joint space projects with other countries increasingly difficult.

"In the last couple of years, there have even been concerns raised within NASA about exchanging technical information with other countries, particularly Russia, on work involving the International Space Station (ISS). It's kind of surprising to me that we would be talking this way after we've been working with these countries over a number of years," said Abbey.

"Working with other countries would make the return to the Moon less costly for NASA. If we're going to the Moon or Mars, trying to go ourselves is not realistic. I think the cost as well as other factors make it such that you need to work with other countries.

"The US stance is making it increasingly isolated. It's causing other partnerships to be formed, because other countries are going to work together. We're putting ourselves in a difficult situation in that regard," he added.

Elsewhere, Braukus has said the agency was still seeking international cooperation on projects that could include joint construction of a Moon base and joint robotic Moon missions.

But he reiterated NASA's stated intention to go it alone to build the Ares launch vehicle and Orion crew capsule that would propel people to the Moon.

"It's a matter of space economic and security policies that we want to develop the Orion and Ares launch vehicles," he said.

Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert at American University in Washington, said the desire to build its own space transportation system might also streamline the system's production.

"NASA wants to keep the mission simple. International cooperation increases mission complexity, which increases cost - usually more than the monetary contributions of the partners," New Scientist quoted McCurdy as saying.

John Logsdon, a space policy analyst of George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, said, the Interfax report might have stemmed from a misunderstanding by some Russian officials about the US policy to develop its own transportation system.

He said the miscommunication occurred possibly during recent US-Russian negotiations that led to the signing of a one billion dollar contract for Russia to make cargo flights to the US part of the International Space Station.

"During those preliminary discussions, Russia made a likely informal offer to help NASA with transportation to the Moon. My understanding is that they kind of threw into that discussion an 'Oh yes, if you provide us some money, we'll help you get to the Moon'.

And it's a strong US policy to develop the transportation system as a US-only capability. I don't think it's a big deal. It's not like there was a formal specific proposal that after due consideration NASA rejected," said Logsdon.

ANI