U.S., China Ponder Space Alliance

Sept. 27, 2006 — NASA got a first-hand look at China's secretive space program this week, spawning enough goodwill for follow-up technical discussions, the agency's administrator said Wednesday.

"We've agreed that it's a good idea to talk again," Griffin said in a teleconference from Shanghai, the last stop on a five-day tour to meet with top Chinese space officials.

"We need to look for things that we have in common, that we share and that we can do together. That's what this trip was about," he said.

The first NASA administrator to visit China, Griffin said it was far too early to talk about specific programs for cooperation. Accompanying him is a small entourage including associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier and Shanghai-born veteran astronaut Shannon Lucid,

However, one starting point could be to share data collected during upcoming robotic surveys of the moon.

China plans to launch its first moon probe next year. NASA, which has begun designing spacecraft and missions to follow up its 1969-1972 Apollo moon program, will not be ready to fly its new lunar orbiter until 2008.

"What China really wants is respect," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a noted space policy expert who heads the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. "They want to know that we take what they're doing seriously, that we see they can technically contribute and that we're serious about potentially working with them."

China has been pushing for U.S. recognition and collaboration for years, but deep concerns about mission technology, weapons proliferation, human rights and economic issues cast a cold pallor on the prospect of partnerships.

Griffin has repeatedly referred to his trip as an introductory visit, a get-acquainted meeting.

Before leaving for China, a top NASA advisor said China would have to be more open about its space program for the United States to be involved.

"I did make a point that with regard to cooperation on space programs generally and human spaceflight programs in particular that the greatest possible degree of transparency and openness is a requirement, if for no reason more important than without it, we stand a chance to kill people," Griffin said.

"If we are to conduct human spaceflight activities together we have to have a great degree of trust, a great degree of sharing, a great degree of openness," he said.

In 2003, China became just the third country in history to launch people into space. That mission was followed last year by a second flight and announcements of plans to build a space station and eventually a lunar base.

Griffin ruled out Chinese participation in the International Space Station during its assembly stage, which NASA recently resumed after a nearly four-year hiatus to recover from the 2003 Columbia accident.

While there may be room for Chinese participation in future research onboard the orbital complex, or possibly an astronaut exchange program on the spaceships being designed to fly after the shuttle is retired in 2010, Griffin stressed it is too early to know.

"I think with this visit, the United States is taking the first steps toward helping to establish closer relationships with the space program of China, but, again, collaboration on human missions would be well down the road, and this is only the first step," he said.

The United States has made use of its civilian space program for foreign diplomacy before.

In 1975, an Apollo capsule linked up in space with a Soyuz spacecraft flown by the former Soviet Union in a brief warming of the Cold War, which gripped both nations in fears of nuclear attacks.

After the breakup of the Communist regime, NASA collaborated with Russia on a series of joint missions to fly cosmonauts on the space shuttles and U.S. astronauts on the now-defunct Mir space station.

One thing the Chinese won't buy is lip service, warns Johnson-Freese. "If the Chinese get the feeling that we think we're doing them a favor, that won't work at all," he said. "Instead, what you have to do is figure out what they have that if we put two-and-two together, it will equal more than four."

Griffin said the first steps in a space collaboration likely would be small: sharing information on climate research, environmental monitoring and other scientific programs.

"Between countries and cultures, there are always things which divide us and set us apart and things which bring us together," said Griffin. "Cooperation in space is one of those things that I think we can look forward to being a unifying force."