The US-EU trade war has no impact on cooperation in space. This was announced at a space symposium by representatives of the UK and US space forces.
Conversations at the space symposium
There’s an international space symposium in the US recently. Various specialists related to the space sphere communicate in a more or less informal atmosphere and sometimes it is possible to hear quite interesting things from them. For example, how the current political situation on Earth affects what happens in space.
It’s no secret that President Trump’s administration doesn’t treat Europe very well. Lately, their relations have been more like an economic war. Meanwhile, there are key U.S. partners not only in civilian but also in military space programs. How does this whole situation affect them?
The short answer is: Absolutely not. At least that’s what the former commander of the UK Space Command, Air Marshal Paul Godfrey, assures us. Now he works in the U.S. and knows for a fact that the past week of joint military work has been exactly the same as it was for many years before.
His colleague, Gen. Chance Saltzman, head of the U.S. Space Force Operations Command, fully agrees with Godfrey. He also attended the symposium to convey his agency’s position on key issues.
Cooperation in space
Space cooperation is generally the thing that is least dependent on international politics on Earth. Satellites, stations and spacecraft are too complex a thing for the process of preparing them for flight to change according to the president’s mood.
The people running the space programs are fundamentally in favor of maintaining their international ties no matter what. Sometimes it has rather unpleasant consequences. For example? NASA never broke off cooperation with Russia on the ISS.
On the other hand, the fact that the US and UK militaries are cooperating in space, despite all of Trump’s statements, is something to be happy about. As the same Saltzman said at the symposium, space systems were too expensive to buy two separate ones when you could use the same one.
According to spacenews.com
