International Space Cooperation Still Faces Significant Obstacles

摘要

Expansive ideas about international cooperation in lunar and Mars exploration — a common theme at gatherings of space scientists — were confronted by unusually public expressions of re-alpolitik here as space agency officials insisted on the primacy of politics, technology transfer concerns and their own national interests. Time and again during the 57th International As-tronautical Congress, held here Oct 2-6, appeals for a coordinated global effort to explore space beyond low Earth orbit were checked by warnings that, in some ways, the major spacefilling nations are as distrustful of each other today as they were 20 years ago.