Roscosmos Chief says NASA’s Response to His Message about Sanctions Was Evasive

The CEO of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin has described as evasive the response he received from NASA’s chief Jim Bridenstine in connection with the sanctions against some affiliates of the Russian government-run corporation, which might indicate the United States’ intention to curtail participation in international space programs, TASS reported.

“The reply we received was evasive, as diplomats say: yes, we support export control that our government introduced, but on the other hand we stand by the ISS values,” Rogozin said on the round-the-clock television news channel Rossiya-24 in an interview.

“Generally speaking, I should say this: I have an impression that our U.S. counterparts have set the course towards curtailing international space programs. Before, we hoped that space might remain outside politics, but it has turned out that it cannot remain outside politics. Space is the essence of politics. Everything is reflected there,” Rogozin said.

He stressed that the same applied to the demonstration of technologies, the lunar and orbital races.

“It’s about who is the first to fly, who is to accomplish more. As a matter of fact, it is a show of technological muscle,” Rogozin said.

He stressed that as long as the International Space Station remained operational, cooperation would go on.

“In other spheres, there is a trend towards curtailing cooperation, to my regret,” he said.

Earlier, Rogozin said he had asked the U.S. Ministry of Commerce for an explanation of why Roscosmos affiliates – TsNIIMash and the space rocket center Progress – had come under the latest U.S. sanctions, introduced against a number of Russian and Chinese enterprises. Washington argues that the enterprises in question worked for the armed forces of their respective countries. None of the organizations on the black list can acquire a number of U.S. goods and technologies. There are 58 Chinese and 45 organizations on the black list.