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Beijing (AFP) May 05, 2006 China is looking forward to an upcoming visit by the head of NASA but has called on the United States to be more welcoming to its space officials, state media said Thursday. US National Aeronautic and Space Administration chief Michael Griffin said last month he had accepted an invitation from the China National Space Administration to visit the country, although no date has yet been announced. "We welcome them (Griffin and his colleagues) to take a look over here," the China Daily newspaper quoted China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp president Zhang Qingwei as saying. "But personally, I hope the exchanges will become more reciprocal." he added. Zhang said that while China looked forward to cooperating with the United States on space matters and left its door open to US visitors, Washington had frequently denied Chinese aerospace staff visas in recent years. Applications for visas had been rejected even when Chinese staff had wanted to visit international space conferences, he added. Zhang said he hoped the situation would change and emphasized that China was willing to cooperate with the United States in areas including deep space exploration, commercial satellite launches and manned space flights. He pledged to protect US intellectual property rights -- a key concern for many countries from which China seeks technological cooperation. The Pentagon and a number of US senators have opposed cooperation with Beijing, viewing China's young space program as a potential threat to the US satellite system, which underpins American military power. China has previously said it wants to join the International Space Station, which involves the United States as well as Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, but it has met with US resistance. Griffin was grilled by the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space last month on whether China was a rival or a partner, and indicated his willingness to work the Chinese. "The United States needs good competitors and it needs good partners and sometimes they can be the same," he told the lawmakers. China launched its first manned space mission in 2003, joining the United States and Russia. In 2005 it carried out a second flight with two astronauts. Beijing has said it plans to send an unmanned probe to the moon and to build its own space station. The country reportedly spends the equivalent of about 500 million dollars a year on its space program, compared with NASA's 17 billion dollar proposed budget for 2007.
Source: Agence France-Presse Related Links Follow the Chinese space program at Dragon Space More about China in Space at Astronautix
China To Build A Space Station After Shenzhou 7
Beijing (XNA) Apr 27, 2006China will launch Shenzhou VII with three astronauts in September 2008, after the Beijing Olympic Games, said Song Zhengyu, deputy director-designer of carrier rocket F of March II and research fellow of the first institute of the China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp (CASTC). |
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