NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks before the launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule to the International Space Station on a test flight at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., July 29, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/ File photo
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BEIJING, July 4 (Reuters) – China on Monday dismissed as irresponsible slander a NASA chief’s warning that China could “take over” the moon as part of a military program, saying it had always called for building a community of nations in space.
China has accelerated the pace of its space program over the past decade, with a focus on lunar exploration. China made its first unmanned moon landing in 2013 and expects to launch rockets powerful enough to send astronauts to the moon by the end of this decade. Read more
“We’re certainly very concerned about China landing on the moon and saying, ‘It’s ours now, you stay out,'” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told Germany’s Bild newspaper in an interview published Saturday.
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The head of the US space agency said China’s space program is military and that China has stolen ideas and technology from others.
“This is not the first time the head of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ignored the facts and spoken irresponsibly about China,” said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry.
“The US side has consistently built a smear campaign against China’s normal and reasonable efforts in space, and China firmly opposes such irresponsible remarks.”
China has always promoted building a shared future for humanity in space and has opposed its armaments and any arms race in space, he said.
NASA, under its Artemis program, plans to send a manned mission into orbit around the Moon in 2024 and to perform a manned landing near the Moon’s south pole by 2025.
China is planning unmanned missions to the moon’s south pole this decade.
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Reporting by Martin Quinn Pollard; writing by Ryan Woo; edited by Robert Birsell
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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