NASA, China to discuss cooperation

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NASA head Michael Griffin said he had accepted an invitation to visit China for talks on possible Sino-American space cooperation.

\"The Chinese have offered an opportunity ... to discuss cooperation,\" Griffin told the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, while not specifying a date.
\"I think the US always benefits from discussions and I do not see how it can hurt us,\" said Griffin, administrator of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration.

In early April Luo Ge, a senior official of the China National Space Administration, said he had complained to Griffin about US resistance to cooperating with China on space, particularly on the International Space Station, which involves Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan.

Insisting that China wants to join the space station project, Luo said he told Griffin that the US was much more open on his first visit to the United States in 1980, and that today it is the complete opposite.

The Pentagon and a number of lawmakers have opposed cooperation with Beijing, claiming that China's young space program as a potential threat to the US satellite system which underpins American military power.

China launched its first manned space mission in 2003, joining the exclusive club of the United States and Russia. In 2005 it carried out a second space flight with two astronauts.

Beijing has said it plans to send an unmanned probe to the moon in 2010 and to build its own space station.

Chinese spends the equivalent of 500 million dollars a year on its space program, compared to NASA's 17 billion dollar proposed budget for 2007.

Griffin was quizzed Tuesday by lawmakers on whether China was a rival or a partner in space exploration.

\"The United States needs good competitors and it needs good partners and sometimes they can be the same,\" he told them.

\"Twenty years ago few people would have said that Russia will be our best partner in the Space Station,\" he noted.
A new spaceship could be ready to replace the nation's aging shuttle fleet by 2011 — three years ahead of schedule — if lawmakers added money to NASA's proposed budget, the head of the space agency told a congressional panel on Tuesday.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said that date is the earliest the new spaceship, or crew exploration vehicle, could be developed no matter how much money the agency received.

Currently, the target date for building a new vehicle is 2014.

With his pitch to Congress, Griffin underscored a point he has made previously about completing the spaceship on a faster time frame.

Pressed by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Griffin acknowledged an additional $1 billion could accelerate the program's completion.

The shuttle is to be retired in 2010, and lawmakers are concerned about when a replacement will be ready.

\"If money were not an issue — going back to Apollo kinds of days — then I think it would be no technical problem to have an operational system available in five to six years,\" Griffin said after testifying before a subcommittee that oversees NASA spending.

President Bush's budget calls for a 3.2 percent increase in NASA spending over last year. The House and Senate have authorized an additional $1.1 billion, but that is only a guide. The money must be appropriated by both chambers.

A Senate appropriations subcommittee was to scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider the proposed increase.

NASA will be shelving its three aging space shuttles in four years. The next generation of spaceships is supposed to carry astronauts to the moon by 2018 and eventually to Mars.

The so-called \"flight gap\" between the shuttles and their replacement could affect research and American space competitiveness, lawmakers said.

\"We don't want a hiatus because we think that puts us in a security risk position,\" said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.