When President Bush met with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak this week, the main issues on the table had to deal with topics like free trade and North Korea. But the two also reached an agreement about cooperation in space. The official White House statement is short on details, saying only that the two countries pledged to “promote close cooperation in the fields of civil space exploration”, but Lee offered a little more detail in a joint press conference with Bush:
President Bush and I agreed to further expand our cooperation in the area of space science and aeronautics by promoting joint space exploration, development of scientific research satellites, and Korea’s participation in NASA’s International Lunar Network Project.
The last item was actually announced last week in a NASA press release about the International Lunar Network, suggesting that South Korea will either provide one or more robotic lunar landers, or otherwise contribute those missions. What else is involved in “promoting joint space exploration” and the “development of scientific research satellites”. isn’t clear.
This might be more interesting if the US still had a lot to offer. They refer to the “NASA’s International Lunar Network Project” which will get started years after President Bush is gone. We could “allow” them to buy their own Delta or Atlas to launch a satellite, but is that cooperation? And we can hardly offer to take any Korean astronauts up since we will soon go begging to launch our own.
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