ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says Russia and China working together to build a new ‘Moon Space Station’ to compete with NASA.
“When we look at the US and China in space there has been some competition”, he said.
“The International Space Station going around the earth - China is locked out of it because of the US policies of working with Chinese scientists and government organisations.”
Dr Tucker said this was why China was left out of NASA’s moon station project Gateway - a joint US and Australian venture.
China building their own moon station was never in doubt - but Russia’s decision to merge resources with China was the real interest.
“The International Space Station now is built essentially equally with the US and Russia,” Dr Tucker said.
Instead of furthering their collaboration with the US, Russia decided to work jointly with China to build their own moon station.
The ultimate question surrounding the merger, according to Dr Tuc