India-U.S. relationship more critical for space exploration: former NASA official

The relationship between India and the U.S. is absolutely critical on Earth and possibly even more so in space, a former top NASA official has said, describing India as a “sleeping giant” for whom the sky is no longer the limit.

The relationship between India and the U.S. is absolutely critical on Earth and possibly even more so in space, a former top NASA official has said, describing India as a "sleeping giant" for whom the sky is no longer the limit.

Mike Gold, the former associate administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships at NASA, hoped that cooperation in the field of space would be one of the major areas of discussion between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden when they meet here at the White House next week.

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“The relationship between the United States and India is absolutely critical on earth, and possibly even more so in space. India will soon become the fourth country to be able to launch its citizens into space and is therefore a global leader in the field,” said Mr. Gold who is currently Chief Growth Officer of Florida-based Redwire Space.

“Sky is no longer the limit for India,” he told PTI on June 15.

Mr. Gold is considered an architect of the Artemis Accord, a set of agreements that lay out a framework for responsible exploration of the Moon.

India is conducting missions to monitor and investigate, explore climate change on the Earth through the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) programme, which is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on an Earth Observation Satellite.