This is partly due to the complex process of approving draft treaties within the US administration, said Michael Gold, Acting Deputy Director for International Relations at NASA.
WASHINGTON, December 18. /TASS/. The initial skepticism of the Russian side regarding the proposed agreements on the development of the Moon by the United States was caused by incorrect interpretation of the content of this document in a number of media, but later Russia revised its attitude to the treaty. This opinion was expressed on Thursday by the acting Deputy Director of NASA for International Relations Michael Gold during a video interview organized by the Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
"In fact, I think that most of the objections voiced by Russia and other countries are based on misunderstandings and lack of information," Gold said.
According to him, this is partly due to the complex process of approving draft treaties within the US administration. "You need to get the government's approval before you can move on and discuss them [agreements] publicly," he explained. "Unfortunately, as often happens, information about the agreements leaked [to the media], and even before our public announcement of the agreements on May 15, there were some media reports in which, frankly, there was information that was fundamentally incorrect or created a wrong understanding of the agreements, and this was reacted to in Russia and a number of other countries," the acting deputy director of NASA added.
In his opinion, when the American side did publish first an excerpt from the May 15 agreements, and then their text itself, " some of those who were initially critical of them [the agreements] became big supporters of the agreements as soon as they were able to read their text." "The Russians are an example of this. Initially, there was skepticism, which was fueled by incorrect information in the media, but when we published an excerpt from the agreements on May 15, there was actually a very good article from TASS, in which my colleague from Russia praised the agreement, calling it an opportunity for interaction," Gold said.
"The Agreement Of Artemis"
on may 15, nasa presented the basic principles on which the proposed international agreement on the exploration of the moon, called the "artemis accords", will be built. On the same day, Gold, answering a question from a TASS correspondent at a briefing for foreign journalists, called incorrect the reports that appeared earlier in a number of media outlets about the US unwillingness to include Russia in the agreement on the moon. He admitted that in the place of representatives of Russia, he would have reacted negatively to these agreements, " given the information that was presented." He also confirmed that the USA consider Russia as a partner in the development of the moon and expressed the hope that the first step towards the conclusion between Moscow and Washington agreement in the framework proposed by the American side "Agreements of Artemis" can become part of the Russian Federation in creating along with US the lunar Gateway station.
in turn, the deputy director general of roscosmos for international cooperation, sergey savelyev, in response to this, expressed the opinion that joint participation in projects related to the development of the moon could become a serious factor for expanding cooperation between russia and the united states.
the artemis agreements, named after the lunar program, are a series of bilateral treaties between the united states and partner countries. The principles of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty are largely taken as a basis. Among the listed principles, NASA called, in particular, provisions on the extraction of resources on the Moon and the idea of creating so-called security zones that should prevent "malicious interference".