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Head of COPUOS to speak in DC next week

Gérard Brachet, the new chairman of the UN’s Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), will speak about the organization and its aims to support international cooperation in space, this Monday at CSIS headquarters in Washington. COPUOS has kept a fairly low profile in recent years, although there are signs Brachet would like to have the organization do more, although exactly what it can, or should, do remains to be seen. That challenge can be seen in a speech given by NASA administrator Michael Griffin at the IAF Congress in Spain last week, where he made it clear that national security and technology transfer concerns have a higher priority over international cooperation in space:

The United States is firmly committed to ensuring that certain key technologies, which we possess and some others do not, not be used against us or our allies. That priority is higher for us than partnership in various space endeavors, and this fact must be understood and carefully considered by the parties involved in any putative collaboration. I recognize the bluntness of this assertion, but I believe that each of us, as spacefaring nations, must respect each other’s national priorities, and must speak openly and honestly with each other if there are differences which hamper our ability to collaborate.

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