WASHINGTON, May 17. /TASS/. Relations between NASA and Roscosmos are still professional, despite the international situation, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at hearings in US Congress on Tuesday.
"We have seen nothing but professionalism from the cosmonauts onboard the space station," he said. "We have seen nothing but a professional relationship in both the Moscow and the Houston mission control centers and the way our people, our NASA people are being treated in Moscow and the way those Russian folks <…> in Houston are being treated."
"Our space program is an international space program," he went on to say. "Look at the space station. We built it with the Russians. We have to operate with the Russians."
"There is an ESA European Space Agency module, there's a Japanese space agency module," Nelson continued. "Look at the lunar space station or Gateway: the Europeans and the Japanese are participating there as well."
"In Houston right now, we've got a crew of two astronauts from the United Arab Emirates," the administrator said. "The thrust of your question is, with the changing politics on the surface of the face of the earth, how are we going to keep this going? Well, we're going to do it very carefully."
"The civilian space program is where you can accomplish extraordinary international things," he said.
The NASA administrator also said the US is in a space race with China. He said that race won’t be much unlike the race between the US and the Soviet Union.