NASA and Russia Team Up for Moon-Orbiting Spaceport Project

NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced their collaboration on a moon-orbiting spaceport project on Wednesday.

“Building a strategic capability for advancing and sustaining human space exploration in the vicinity of the Moon will require the best from NASA, interested international partners, and U.S. industry,” explained NASA in a post on their official website. “As NASA continues formulating the deep space gateway concept, the agency signed a joint statement with the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, on Wednesday, Sept. 27 at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.”

“This joint statement reflects the common vision for human exploration that NASA and Roscosmos share. Both agencies, as well as other International Space Station partners, see the gateway as a strategic component of human space exploration architecture that warrants additional study,” the space agency continued. “NASA has already engaged industry partners in gateway concept studies. Roscosmos and other space station partner agencies are preparing to do the same.”

In their post, NASA also announced their intentions “to expand human presence into the solar system starting in the vicinity of the Moon using its new deep space exploration transportation systems, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.”

In a statement, NASA’s acting administrator Robert Lightfoot claimed they were “pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration,” despite the fact that “the deep space gateway is still in concept formulation.”

“Statements such as this one signed with Roscosmos show the gateway concept as an enabler to the kind of exploration architecture that is affordable and sustainable,” he proclaimed.

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington and Gab @Nash, or like his page at Facebook.