Russians criticise Trump order enabling him to “seize other planets”
Russian space agency, Roscosmos has accused US President Donald Trump of signing an executive order which will give him the power to take over other planets.
The order outlines US…
Russian space agency, Roscosmos has accused US President Donald Trump of signing an executive order which will give him the power to take over other planets.
The order outlines US policy on commercial mining in space but the Russian agency said the document, signed on Monday, damages the scope for international cooperation in space.
According to Reuters news agency, the order states that the United States would seek to negotiate “joint statements and bilateral and multilateral arrangements with foreign states regarding safe and sustainable operations for the public and private recovery and use of space resources.”
US does not view space as a “global commons”
It also stated that US citizens should have the right to engage in such activity and that “outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons”.
But Roscosmos has warned that the order put the United States at odds with the notion of space belonging to all humanity. A statement issued by the Russian space agency said:
Aggressive plans to seize other planets no recipe for “fruitful cooperation”
“Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries (on course for) fruitful cooperation.”
Relations between Russia and the United States are at post-Cold War lows with accusations of election meddling but cooperation on space issues has continued.
Privatisation of space is “unacceptable”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters: “Any kind of attempt to privatise space in one form or another – and I find it difficult to say now whether this can be seen as an attempt to privatise space – would be unacceptable”.
Russia first announced its plans to join Luxembourg – the first country to adopt legal regulations to mining in space – at the beginning of March last year.
