>>NASA Chief in China to Discuss Space Cooperation
By WARREN LEARY
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — The leader of NASA arrives in China on Sunday for a tour of space agency sites, making him the most senior American space official to go to China to discuss possible cooperation between the countries’ programs.
Michael D. Griffin, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has repeatedly cautioned that the tour, which will include Beijing, Shanghai and a desert launching site in Gansu Province, will be an exploratory visit that will not result in any bilateral space agreements or formal partnerships.
“This is a get-acquainted visit that has no preconditions to it,” he said recently. “We are going to see things and meet people, and see where that takes us.”
China is the third country, after the United States and Russia, to have sent humans into space. It has been seeking more international cooperation in aerospace projects, but the United States has been reluctant. Much of China’s program is run by the military, raising concerns about possible technology transfers or other national security issues for any such cooperation.
Working with China in space has also been hampered by other issues under discussion by the two nations, like weapons proliferation, trade agreements, patent and trademark enforcement, and human rights, said a senior adviser at NASA, who spoke on condition that he not be identified.
Recently, though, the American position has begun to shift. When Chinese space officials invited the previous NASA administrator, Sean O’Keefe, to visit their operations two years ago, nothing came of the overture. However, when President Hu Jintao of China visited the United States in April and made the same request of Mr. Griffin, President Bush accepted the invitation.
“There has been a policy decision by the Bush White House to do this,” said John Logsdon, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “It’s part of an effort to engage China, to open a dialogue that may influence their policies in other areas. But it’s starting slowly and deliberately.”
Accompanying Mr. Griffin on the trip is William Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for space operations, Michael F. O’Brien, the assistant administrator for external relations, and Shannon Lucid, a veteran astronaut. Ms. Lucid, who is the daughter of Baptist missionaries, was born in Shanghai and is returning to China for the first time since her childhood.
The group will meet Sun Laiyan, the administrator of the China National Space Administration in Beijing and tour aerospace operations and science centers there before going to Shanghai to visit space manufacturing plants there.
Also scheduled on the five-day trip is a visit to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, an extensive rocket-launching complex from which the Chinese prepare and fly their manned spacecraft.
The Chinese launched their first manned spacecraft, Shenzhou, in October 2003, sending one astronaut into orbit for a day. In 2005, a Shenzhou with a two-person crew spent five days in orbit. Chinese authorities said their third mission, set for fall 2007, will send up three astronauts and will include spacewalks.
This year, Chinese officials visiting the United States outlined their plans for an extensive program of manned and unmanned programs, including orbiting a small, staffed space station by 2015 and establishing a moon program that includes sending a robotic orbiter next year, a lunar rover in 2012 and a lander that would return a moon sample to Earth in 2017. While there are no immediate plans to do so, Chinese officials also have expressed interest in sending humans to the moon.
Vincent G. Sabathier, a senior fellow on space issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that in the past, the United States had tried to contain Chinese ambitions in space but that this was no longer possible. China has major space agreements with Russia, Europe and most other nations with space programs, and is clearly striving to have a major role in the area, he said.
“The Chinese are going their way and have a strategy in place,” Mr. Sabathier said. “They want to work with the United States and be accepted as a major player, and the U.S. is obviously now seeing some potential in working with them, which explains Mr. Griffin’s trip.”
Mr. Sabathier and other experts said the composition of Mr. Griffin’s team, including the head of NASA’s human space flight program and Ms. Lucid, whose five trips to space included a long stay aboard the Russian Mir space station, suggests that some type of cooperation in space may be under consideration.
nytimes.com |
