A China-USA space co-operation programme?

President Barack Obama’s visit to China has resulted in a press release announcing Chinese-American rapprochement in the space field.

 

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his American counterpart Barack Obama during the latter’s trip to China. Credit: White House/Pete Souza

Since the 12 November, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has been on an official tour of Asia to strengthen links between his country and this part of the world. The trip to China has notably witnessed a meeting between the Head of the American government and Hu Jintao, the President of the People’s Republic of China.

A space co-operation programme
An official statement has been released specifying the rapprochements that the two powers would like to instigate and one paragraph concerns the space industry in particular: “The United States and China look forward to expanding discussions on space science cooperation and starting a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration, based on the principles of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit.” A visit of NASA’s Administrator, Charles Bolden, is planned for 2010, which is not novel since his predecessor Mike Griffin visited China in September 2006.

The International Space Station. After 2003 and its first manned space flight, China expressed its desire to participate in this orbital complex on more than one occasion. Credit: NASA

China excluded from the ISS
However, the geopolitical and spatial climate is very different. During Mike Griffin’s visit 3 years ago, the American Space Agency’s return to the Moon programme had not undergone the critical examination of the Augustine Committee (see this article). We would reiterate that this panel of experts appointed by the White House concluded that NASA did not have sufficient funds to reach our natural satellite by 2020. In addition, at the time, China was often presented as the actual opponent of the United States in a new race to the Moon. Evidently, diplomatic tensions between the Asian giant and Washington were transposed into space. Thus, when the Peking regime, strong in its ability to send astronauts (called taikonauts) into orbit with its Long March rocket and its Shenzhou capsule, expressed its intention of participating in the International Space Station, the obstacles easily triumphed as no political desire to overcome them emerged. Certain observers noted, however, that the Chinese space industry was lacking in transparency and that this factor could have influenced matters. At the same time, China launched its own orbital station projects, and even explained them during the International Astronautical Congress in October 2009 (see this article and the video below).



A turning point or just intentions?
Is the official statement mentioned above, then, a turning point to paving the way to a genuine China-USA co-operation programme? Although the political intention has been expressed, the demand for transparency in the basic principles of future discussions is worthy of note. This is obviously an allusion on the part of Washington to the fact that the Chinese space programme is still heavily shrouded in a culture of secrecy and governed by considerable military involvement. Any obstacles cannot therefore be overlooked, but before the fall of the wall (see this article) who would have dared to bet that American space shuttles would visit the Mir station or that the enemies of the cold war would subsequently find themselves associated with other countries in the ISS programme?

Published on 18 November 2009