The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: June 3, 2007

Official News - page 10


REAL LIFE NEWS: SPACE AGENCIES TO COOPERATE

by Hazed

Fourteen of the world's space agencies have agreed that in future they will coordinate their space explorations of the Moon and Mars. They have published a document that sets out their common goals, which have been agreed after months of discussion. The document outlines the reasons why society should explore space and gives the rationale for the current interest in returning to the Moon and exploring Mars.

The document is not binding on any of the organisations who are involved in the agreement, but it sets out the framework for the future coordination of space exploration. This will help different countries to exchange information on their space plans.

The space agencies involved are from Italy, UK, France, China, Canada, Australia, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, USA, Ukraine and Russia. The European Space Agency is also involved.

The European Space Agency and NASA have already cooperated on the highly successful Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and they are keen to repeat that success with other joint projects.

Many of the countries involved in this new initiative have already outlined programs to explore the Moon and Mars, but experts say that the costs and technological demands would be too much for any one agency to shoulder.


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