According to Bob Dempsey, acting deputy head of the American research program on board the ISS, it often happens that American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts on board the station regularly "exchange equipment" for scientific experiments
JOHN F. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER /Florida/, December 20. /Correspondent of TASS Sergey Yumatov/. The implementation of space flights to Mars and the Moon will be impossible without the cooperation of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with Russian colleagues. This assessment was shared by the acting Deputy head of the American scientific research program on board the International Space Station (ISS) in an interview with a TASS correspondent Bob Dempsey.
"We have a very extensive cooperation. And we will continue to support it as the ISS continues to operate, whenever it ceases to exist," Dempsey said.
"In addition, flights to the Moon and Mars are [planned]," he continued. "There is no way we can implement them without cooperation with the Russians." "I am sure they will be a part of it," the specialist said.
According to Dempsey, it "often happens" that American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts on board the ISS regularly "exchange equipment" for scientific experiments. In particular, according to him, this concerns the long-term experiment "Plasma Crystal" (the study of plasma-dust crystals and liquids in microgravity). "We constantly support this kind of cooperation," concluded the NASA specialist.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hai, Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer are currently on duty at the ISS.
