NASA’s moon plans are getting shape every day and with each passing day, we can hear new participants in the mission. In the past, we been hearing different countries were involved in their own missions and competition was high as each space agency wanted to lead the other one in any possible way. This competition in a way provided the required thrust to boost the space missions that were missing for a long time.
We can realize it lately that space agencies around the world are adding a particularly strong international flavor to each passing mission. International Space Station is evidence that vanished the East- West conflict and had given way to more cooperation than competition in outer space. But after ISS it will be moon that will play a very crucial role in bringing the countries closer for more cooperation and the credit goes to NASA that have been working now by bringing more and more countries to participate and to fulfill the dream of permanently inhabiting the lunar surface.
As NASA intends to send a four-astronaut crew to the moon in 2020 to start setting up a base camp on one of the lunar poles, Canadian Space Agency officials are hoping a Canadian will be part of an international team that could be living on the moon within 20 years. Moreover, as the lunar project involves drilling holes on the moon, because its soil is believed to have potential as a source of oxygen or as a propellant to get astronauts back home.
Alain Berinstain, the Canadian Space Agency’s director of planetary exploration and space astronomy, said -
“In Canada, we’re good at making holes in the ground and bringing stuff up ... we do that already every day and we do it well.”
NASA held a series of international meetings during the past year, which brought together space agencies, business executives, scientists and other experts. That led to a strategy for exploration of the moon. But, it’s up to the federal government and the public to decide if Canada should co-operate with its space partners on a lunar mission. But one thing’s for sure that there is no single space agency that can pull this off on their own. Probably this will be the lunar mission that will serve the world much better than the current diplomatic wars between the differing civilizations (eastern and western).
Via: CBC
