The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is willing to explore the planets closest to the Earth in cooperation with Russia, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
“Yes. We are ready to collaborate on Mars and the Moon,” Bridenstine said in an exclusive interview with Interfax, which will also be published in Kommersant.
The U.S. and Russia are collaborating now in pursuing a number of research projects on the Moon and Mars, he said.
“In fact, Russia has created some neutron capabilities to understand the surface of the Moon and to understand where the water is on the surface of the Moon from what we call the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and one of the sensors on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a Russian sensor that is helping us to understand and map the water on the surface on the Moon. In fact, we have a similar capability on Mars right now with the Mars Curiosity rover. Again, Russian instruments are helping us understand the composition of Mars. We are already collaborating on the Moon, we are already collaborating on Mars,” Bridenstine said.
NASA also expects to collaborate with Russia in exploring Venus, he said.
“Certainly, there are in the future missions to Venus, and we are going to understand Venus even better than we already understand, and again, it should be and will be a collaboration,” he said.
