Cooperation between the United States and Russia in space is unique and should not stop, said NASA chief Bill Nelson, who held the first telephone conversations with the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin.
“We are partners in space, and I don’t want this to stop,” he said in an interview with Politico.Nelson noted that Russia has recently received a module that is planned to be launched on the ISS, and called it a good sign that the Russian side is not going to abandon the station after four years.
The head of NASA acknowledged that the political sphere has become very tense. “But where is the area where we were able to cooperate?”he said, recalling that cooperation between Russia and the United States in space has been conducted since 1975, when an American spacecraft at the height of the Cold War met and docked with a Soviet spacecraft.
According to Rogozin, he expects that NASA will form its position on cooperation with Roscosmos for the summit of the Russian Federation and the United States in Geneva. He noted that Moscow can make plans for cooperation with Washington only after the lifting of US sanctions against Russian enterprises of the space industry.
The head of Roscosmos held the first telephone conversations with the new head of NASA last Friday. He invited Nelson to visit Russia, and he accepted the invitation.
Earlier, Rogozin denied reports that he was ready to extend the work of the ISS until 2030.