NASA Cooperation Together

Today I learned about the 62^nd International Astronautical Congress(IAC) and how they had a gathering of all the different nations to talk about space exploration.  Indian, European, Japanese, and Russian space chiefs met from around the nation in Africa.  However, the Chinese leader did not show up.  From the link above the chief of NASA Charles Bolden stated, “International cooperation is important not just because of finances but because in this day and age you can no longer afford to leave ideas on the table.  We don’t have the corner on the market on everything technological.  I can go to any of my partners and we could pick a topic and they will dwarf me in their knowledge of it, and so we need to be able to take the best from all of us in trying to go forward in exploration.”  I agree with Charles Bolden in several ways.  Firstly, the expense of space exploration is tremendous.  Therefore, using all the money from all of the different nations would give us a huge jump in building ideas fast.  It costs billions of dollars to send people into space but with the help of others all around the world we can do something we never thought possible.  Second, you cannot leave knowledgeable ideas on the table.  There are so many good thinkers on space exploration out there and putting them all together in one room would send us farther into space.  Not just the ideas of these people would be different but also their technicians who build the crafts could bring a lot to the table too.  We could eventually build something far greater than what those have built in the past.  NASA is building the SLS craft which alone is better than the last ones and can travel farther into the depths of space.  Now bring the ideas of different countries and they can build on our ideas.  All in all, I hope in the near future on space exploration we join as a nation and do this journey together.  There is a lot to learn and analyze out in the complexities of space and together we can accomplish anything.