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OTTAWA — The Trudeau government faced criticism Wednesday for a tepid response to the head of the U.S. space agency saying he wants to see Canadian astronauts walking on the moon in the near future.

Jim Bridenstine, the administrator of he National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said a reconstituted lunar program is the first step toward deeper space exploration, including a mission to Mars.

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On a two-day trip to Ottawa, the NASA chief made an impassioned pitch for Canada to continue its decades-long space partnership with the U.S., including by supplying astronauts.

NASA is embarking on the creation of its new Lunar Gateway, a space station it is planning to send into orbit around the moon starting in 2021. The agency wants to create a “sustainable lunar architecture” that would allow people and equipment to go back and forth to the moon regularly, Bridenstine said.

“If Canadians want to be involved in missions to the surface of the moon with astronauts, we welcome that. We want to see that day materialize,” he told a small group of journalists in Ottawa ahead of his keynote speech to the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.