|
Chinese space official to visit NASA chief
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-24 14:42
The head of China's space agency will visit NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe
next week, a move one U.S. expert said could mean increased cooperation between
the two countries.
Sun Laiyan (right),
administrator of China National Space Administration (CNSA), is
interviewed by the reporters from Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) in this
July 1, 2004 file photo. [cnsa.gov.cn] |
The December 2 meeting with Chinese National Space Agency Administrator Sun
Laiyan had been under discussion for months, O'Keefe said on Tuesday.
"It's not a major milestone by any means, it's more of an evolutionary
thing," O'Keefe said of the meeting, which a NASA official called a courtesy
visit.
He stressed international cooperation was part of President Bush's vision for
space exploration, which includes human missions to the moon and eventually to
Mars.
NASA Administrator
Honorable Sean O'Keefe. [NASA.gov] | "It is not a specific agenda, more an opportunity to exchange views and get
more familiar with what our respective (space) agencies are doing," O'Keefe
said.
The meeting comes barely two weeks after Chinese representatives joined a
NASA workshop in Washington on international space cooperation, and just over a
year after China's first successful human space flight, which concluded on Oct.
16, 2003.
China has never worked directly with
the U.S. space program and is not among the nations working on the International
Space Station. But there are strong signals the Chinese want to cooperate with
NASA.
'SMALL STEPS FORWARD'
The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft has a built-in docking rink that would allow
it to park at the $95 billion station. China's launch complex in Inner Mongolia
is on the same parallel as NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which would let the
Chinese share an orbit with the space station.
Joan Johnson-Freese, who chairs the National Security Decision Making
Department at the U.S. Naval War College, said the Chinese meeting with O'Keefe,
coupled with China's participation in the NASA workshop, was good news.
Yang Liwei, China's
first astronaut into the space, is to walk out of the "Shenzhou" V
spaccraft in this October 16, 2003 file photo after the spacecraft landed
safely in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
[newsphoto] | "NASA could not make these moves on their own," Johnson-Freese, an expert on
international space cooperation, said in a telephone interview. "It's an
acknowledgment from higher up that ignoring the Chinese and their capabilities
in space is not conducive of anything good in the United States.
"We would be much better off working with the Chinese than having the Chinese
work with everybody but us," she said.
China has long wanted to participate in the space station, Johnson-Freese
said, but NASA declined its contributions.
"The United States has always used cooperation in areas like space science
... to build bridges with countries," she said. "I think this will be small
steps forward."
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top China
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
