Liquid fuel boost from Reuters in Berlin
German Deputy Economics Minister Peter Hintze has announced the Federal Republics intention to put an unmanned space craft into the moon's orbit in the early part of the next decade.
Herr Hintze explained that the lunar orbit mission will be useful for scientific research and added that "It is also a chance for Germany to prove its competence in this area."
DLR head Johann-Dietrich Woerner said the project was not intended to compete with efforts of the European Space Agency (ESA), of which the DLR is a member, but to complement them.
"A lunar mission would be a building block and would not be against Europe or against cooperation," he said, adding that the Germans had discussed the project with NASA, ESA and the Russian Space Agency.
Both Woerner and Hintze said Germany has no plans for a manned lunar mission or a moon landing. But Woerder noted the LEO craft would be 50 kms (30 miles) above the moon's surface.
It must be concluded that that the Federal Republic has no territorial claims on the moon.
However according to completely unconfirmed reports it is suggested that several German radio stations have recently been overrun by unlikely looking individuals speaking a language that no-one had heard before.
No-one from the Wilhelmstraße was available for comment.
5 comments:
Only logical they'd try this. They want to be as good as the U.S. That's what this is all about.
loonacy
Plenty of room on the moon.
We just want to see close up if there is any Apollo junk on the moon in the places alleged, or if it was just a Hollywood hoax ;-)
Vertrauen ist gut,
Kontrolle ist besser ;-)
Its a pretty daunting task really - I wonder why?
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