From this Tuesday, Colombia began to be part of the Artemisa project (or Artemis), an international initiative led by the American NASA and whose initial objective is to put a man and a woman on the Moon before the end of 2024
(Read here: Why Did a ‘Space Jellyfish’ Appear in Florida Skies?)
Colombia’s accession to the program was made official at 9 a.m. this Tuesday in a ceremony attended by the Vice President Marta Lucia Ramírez, the Deputy Administrator of NASA, Pamela Ann Melroy, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Tito Crissien, and Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzón.
To date there are already 16 countries that have entered to be part of Artemisawhich also has the support of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
The project, if materialized, would become the first landing on the lunar surface since 1972, 50 years ago. With the novelty that on this occasion, one of the crew members will be a woman, who has not yet been selected.
Artemisa, furthermore, would be just the first step in an ambitious aerospace agenda for NASA and its partners that aims to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon and in lunar orbit, lay the foundations for private companies to strengthen a lunar economy and, eventually send humans to Mars, starting in 2033.
(In context: Artemis, the mission with which NASA seeks to return to the Moon)
Colombia is the second country in South America to enter the agreement (the first was Brazil) and the fifth in this hemisphere after the US, Canada and Mexico.
The “Artemis Agreement” was presented by the Department of State in 2020 and establishes cooperation parameters and guidelines and commitments for space exploration and exploration of lunar resources.
The other signatory countries are Australia, Bahrain, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Ukraine, Great Britain, and the United Arab Emirates.
In the event of Adhesion of Colombia to the NASA program, the vice president and chancellor Marta Lucia Ramírez affirmed that this is a great opportunity for Colombia to enter different areas of knowledge about the Moon.
“The signing of this agreement is of the utmost importance for our government because it is an opportunity to enter into a research and exploration initiative in the different areas of knowledge about the moon. It is a commitment to a long-term strategy in relation to the space,” said Ramírez.
10 years of the FTA with the US
Officials from both governments, as well as US congressmen and members of the private sector, met this Tuesday in Washington to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the entry into force of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the US. and Colombia, in a forum focused not only on the past decade, but on the one to come.
The event, under the name ‘The first decade of the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia’was organized by the Embassy of Colombia and the Washington Association for International Trade (Wita, for its acronym in English) and was part of a series of events that the embassy has been preparing to celebrate 200 years of bilateral relations between the two countries. .
In addition to the Vice President and the ambassador, on the Colombian side, the Minister of Commerce, María Ximena Lombana, and the president of ProColombia, Flavia Santoro, attended. The Americans were represented by Arun Venkataraman, Under Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets, and Rep. Kevin Brady, the ranking Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means.
According to Pinzon, In these years of NAFTA, non-traditional exports – other than hydrocarbons – have grown by more than 53%while at least 500 companies from the United States have invested more than 25,000 million dollars in the country, which have generated thousands of jobs.
Even so, both Pinzón and the Vice President –and several of the participating businessmen– criticized the difficulty that many Colombian products have in entering the US market.
Of course migration is important, but the US should be more committed to the development of the region
“We have an FTA that has given results, but it is not enough. If we have to go from product to product to reach the market, we will be in the same position in ten or twenty years. There are too many restrictions and we must harmonize the process to make it more affordable,” said Ramírez.
In this sense, Colombia asked the US to view the country as one that should be privileged, just as production chains are being reconfigured as a result of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Ramírez emphasized that democracy worldwide is at risk and that countries must collaborate so that tools such as the FTA serve to bring more opportunities to the population and as an antidote to autocracies.
The Vice President also questioned the excessive emphasis of the United States on the issue of migration, ahead of the Summit of the Americas – to be held in June – because, in her opinion, migration is only the symptom of a larger problem, which It is the lack of opportunities. “Of course migration is important, but the US should be more committed to the development of the region,” she asserted.
The official also stressed that investors and private companies, two of the great generators of employment, need a country where there is stability and the rules of the game do not change for them. A message probably addressed to the candidates who are vying for the presidency of the country.
For his part, Venkataraman described Colombia as one of the “best economic allies of the United States” and a key player in the effort to build a more prosperous and democratic hemisphere.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
TIME CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
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