July 4. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of China has branded this Monday as “irresponsible” the words of the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States (NASA), Bill Nelson, in which he warned that Beijing intends to build a lunar base in collaboration with Russia as a preliminary step to “seize” the satellite.
“Some US officials are constantly defaming China’s normal and reasonable tasks in space,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijiang, stressing that the Asian giant “firmly opposes these irresponsible statements.”
“As head of NASA, (Nelson) should be well acquainted with the dark history of the US space program,” he said, before stating that Washington has played a negative role in creating space debris, promoting an arms race in space and undermine global strategic stability.
In this sense, Zhao has criticized that US actions pose “a great threat” to the peaceful uses of space and has defended that Chinese exploration activities have legitimate economic, social, scientific, technological and security objectives, as as the Chinese television network CGTN has collected.
“We must be very worried that China is going to land on the moon to say: now it’s ours and you stay out,” Nelson said in an interview with German tabloid Bild on Saturday. Thus, he pointed out that there is a new space race to reach the Moon, “this time with China.”
The United States plans a trip to the Moon by 2025 and for the first time a woman will travel. Beijing is going further and hopes to have an operational lunar base by 2035. In particular, there would be a race to control the south pole of the Moon due to the presence of water deposits that could be used to make rocket fuel.
Asked about the purpose of China’s presence in space, Nelson responded irritably: “Well, what do you think is happening on the Chinese space station? They learn how to destroy other people’s satellites there.” In this regard, he stated that Beijing has spent years researching technology to “catch” satellites with robotic arms or nets or crash them, supposedly to clean up its own space debris, but could also be used to attack other countries.
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