China and NASA Shared Data About Historic Moon Landing (nypost.com)

hackingbear writes: "China exchanged data with NASA on its recent mission to land a Chinese spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the Chinese space agency said Monday, in what was reportedly the first such collaboration since a Cold-War-era-like American law banned joint space projects with China that do not have prior congressional approval," reports New York Post. "The Chinese space agency's deputy director, Wu Yanhua, said NASA shared information about its lunar orbiter satellite in hopes of monitoring the landing of the Chang'e 4 spacecraft. China, in turn, shared the time and coordinates of Chang'e 4s scheduled landing. He added that while NASA's satellite did not catch the precise moment of landing, it took photographs of the area afterward."

In response to the question about why would China allow this exchange given that the U.S. has put technological obstacles to China's lunar exploration program and refused to issue visas to Chinese experts, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, "China could have chosen not to offer the relevant information to the U.S., but as a major country, we should act with the posture and bearing of a major country. I believe what Mr. Wu said has shown the confidence, openness, and broadmindedness of Chinese aerospace engineers as well as scientists and researchers and China's confident and open posture as a major country."

Comments

Scientists should set a higher example

[SuperKendall]

Especially in space, countries should share everything they can and set an example for the rest of humanity of how we can all work together - a great reason for all nations to continue exploring space BTW.

I realize there are very valid military reasons why some things like rocket technology maybe cannot be shared between countries that are at odds. However there's no reason at all we cannot all share data about what we find out there...

Who are the adults in the room?

[nicolaiplum]

The summary you need:

"Why did you cooperate with the Americans in space when they are being so rude in other ways?"

"Because we are sensible adults".