>>[hey - Where's China? Nice picture in the link]<<
Mish, here is a start (read the following). China has wanted to join in the US for space adventure for the last couple of years, but US looked down upon China until recently. Hopefully, they changed their attitude<g>.
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"RUSSIA, AMERICA AND CHINA: AN INEVITABLE TRIANGLE OF SPACE COOPERATION"
2005-01-18 18:16
MOSCOW. (Andrei Kislyakov, RIA Novosti political commentator.)
It seems that logic and common sense have prevailed after all in international space relations, as the development of space exploration was determined for a long time to come at the end of last year. Contrary to the forecasts made by numerous skeptics in Russia and the United States, the two countries agreed on the future of the main joint program: the International Space Station (ISS). The good personal relationship shared by the Roskosmos chief, Anatoly Perminov, and his U.S. counterpart, NASA director Sean O'Keefe, and their high professionalism largely facilitated this. But if we can see obvious progress in Russian-American relations in space exploration, based on their common responsibility for the future of the interplanetary station that has seen billions of dollars spent on it, the role of the third space power, China, remained unclear until recently.
To be more precise, one side of the triangle was missing - the U.S.-Chinese one - whereas traditionally good Russian-Chinese ties in space exploration and high technologies were growing even stronger. This imbalance could have sooner or later led to serious friction among the three countries.
But early last December, the U.S. and China made the first step, albeit a small one, towards possible space cooperation. The chiefs of the U.S. and Chinese space agencies met in Washington for the first time in the history of relations between the two countries. Mr. O'Keefe received his Chinese counterpart Sun Laiyan, and the latter invited him to make a return visit to Beijing. This visit will evidently become a key international event in this sphere.
The meeting between them, which was held for familiarization purposes, was organized at China's request, said NASA spokeswoman Debra Rahn. Mr. O'Keefe and Mr. Laiyan told each other about their agencies and the main areas of their national space programs. In the opinion of Ms. Rahn, the chief of the Chinese National Space Agency spoke highly of President George Bush's initiative to return to the Moon and launch a manned mission to Mars.
This may resemble a tribute to U.S. space achievements and an exchange of niceties. On the other hand, China is obviously interested in near-orbit manned research programs and interplanetary flights, and closely monitors U.S. progress in this area. Experts from Beijing recently attended an international conference on lunar and Martian projects held by NASA in Washington. The sole unknown is which scenario laconic China will choose. Will it join the ISS program and support the so far modest Russian-American alliance in remote space exploration? Or will it take its own way, leaving the others lost in guesswork? The former option is certainly preferable. But in U.S.-Chinese space-related relations, or in the lack thereof, the political aspect dominates. In the past, America blocked China's admittance to joining the ISS program. The U.S. administration has presented a claim to China's government regarding the regime of the nonproliferation of rocket technologies and is concerned that the military controls almost all China's space programs.
However, in late November Mr. Perminov told RIA Novosti in an exclusive interview on Russian-Chinese cooperation that "the Chinese are not seeking to join the ISS - they want to build their own space station."
"They are following a well-beaten track and are going to orbit a space station, undock, and land a descent module, leaving the second one in orbit, and then send other spaceships to link up with it," he said.
One stage of this program is to be carried out when China makes its second space launch this year with two astronauts on board the spacecraft. During their five-day flight, the crewmembers will move from the descent module into an orbital one to conduct experiments. Furthermore, in the next two years China intends also to launch a satellite to explore the Moon.
It has to be acknowledged that it was unlikely China would ask for ISS admission while the U.S. maintained a tough stand on the issue. But even if Beijing really decides to build its own orbital station, now that a dialogue with the U.S. is underway, China's space program will not be completely closed to the West, and the American concerns will gradually dissipate.
Meanwhile, China will doubtlessly feel the attractive force of interaction in a natural way, when its technical rather than political achievements will require close international cooperation.
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