鈥淩OUND up the usual suspects,鈥� barks the police captain in the movie Casablanca. Jim Green, NASA鈥檚 chief of planetary sciences, was reminded of those words after nine nations signed a ground-breaking agreement on 29 July to cooperate over moon exploration. Unlike Casablanca, however, he couldn鈥檛 do that. 鈥淩ussia and the European Space Agency have heavy commitments. So we have teamed up with some emerging space nations,鈥� Green says.
The UK, Canada, India, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Germany will work with NASA on building and operating a network of sensor-stuffed robotic lunar probes that will monitor, measure and analyse the moon鈥檚 surface and subsurface geology in unprecedented detail (New 杏吧原创, 12 July, p 34).
Japan is expected to launch the first of the spacecraft, a rover, by 2012, with two American landers, called the NASA Anchor Nodes, following soon after.
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Green clearly has Casablanca on his mind. Stressing the high hopes he has for the emerging collaboration, he says, 鈥淚 think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.鈥�
鈥淭his agreement could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship鈥�
