S Korean prez opens Washington visit with spotlight on space, mega deals

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol opened his state visit to Washington on Tuesday by touring a NASA facility with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Biden administration looks to deepen ties with a close ally that it sees as only growing in importance in an increasingly complicated Indo-Pacific.

Before Harris and Yoon's visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Greenbelt, Md., the two countries signed a joint statement on cooperation in space communications and navigation, and received briefings from NASA scientists on cooperative efforts on space exploration and addressing the climate crisis,

Our alliance is leading on some of the most important and pressing issues of our time, Harris said in remarks with Yoon by her side at the NASA facility.

Yoon, for his part, recalled his exhilaration as a third-grader watching on television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped off Apollo 11 to become the first humans to set foot on the moon in 1969.

Now, NASA and the Korea