|
GUANAJUATO, Mexico, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Mexico needs to devote more resources to space science and cooperate with China and other leading space explorers, said Mexican-American astronaut Jose Hernandez.
Mexico should invest more in space and work on establishing a base on the Moon, Hernandez suggested when speaking to Xinhua on the margins of a two-day technology forum that concluded Friday in the central state of Guanajuato.
Although Mexico does have a space agency, AEM, which belongs to the Ministry of Communications and Transport, its budget is small, noted the astronaut, who went into space in 2009.
"What worries me is that the AEM has a symbolic budget, with which it cannot do anything. They hold international forums and workshops, but it should be about more than that. It needs to create projects and build alliances with universities and private sectors," he added.
Dedicating more resources to space research would push Mexico to participate in major projects, such as exploring Mars or building a base on the Moon, he said, while urging the AEM to cooperate with countries home to powerful space programs, such as the United States, Russia and China.
Hernandez, 54, was born in the U.S. state of California as the youngest of four children from a farm family which migrated from Michoacan, Mexico.
After becoming a U.S. astronaut, Hernandez helped create an aerospace engineering degree at the Autonomous Popular University of the State of Puebla in central Mexico.
