Russian space agency says Trump paving way to seize other planets

FILE PHOTO: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity tracks on planet Mars are visible in this August 4, 2010 image released on February 13, 2019. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, accused Donald Trump on Tuesday of creating a basis to take over other planets by signing an executive order outlining U.S. policy on commercial mining in space.

The executive order, which Roscosmos said damaged the scope for international cooperation in space, was signed on Monday.

It said the United States would seek to negotiate "joint statements and bilateral and multilateral arrangements with foreign states regarding safe and sustainable operations for the public and private recovery and use of space resources".

FILE PHOTO: Fans and deltas formed by water and sediment are seen in the Jezero Crater on Mars, identified as a potential landing site for the Mars 2020 Rover, in this false color image taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, published May 15, 2019 and obtained November 15, 2019. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS

It said U.S. citizens should have the right to engage in such activity and that "outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons".

Roscosmos said the order put the United States at odds with the notion of space belonging to all humanity.

"Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries (on course for) fruitful cooperation," its statement said.

FILE PHOTO: A NASA satellite image, taken by one of the Expedition 25 crew members on the International Space Station, shows the lights of Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile River, Egypt October 28, 2010. Picture taken October 28, 2010. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

Relations between Russia and the United States are at post-Cold War lows, but cooperation on space has continued despite an array of differences over everything from Ukraine to accusations of election meddling.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "any kind of attempt to privatise space in one form or another - and I find it difficult to say now whether this can be seen as an attempt to privatise space - would be unacceptable".

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

FILE PHOTO: Sedimentary rock and sand, formed over millions or billions of years as loose sediment cemented into place before being eroded by winds into a zebra stripe-like pattern, are seen within Danielson Crater in this image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, published September 19, 2019 and obtained November 15, 2019. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: Trailing lights from stars in space and from sources on Earth are seen in this composite time-lapse image taken during orbit over Namibia to the Red Sea aboard the International Space Station, July 5, 2019. Image obtained November 15, 2019. Christina Koch/NASA/Handout via REUTERS

FILE PHOTO: An aurora in the Earth's atmosphere is seen from the International Space Station, in this image published June 10, 2019. Christina Koch/NASA/Handout via REUTERS