International Space Politics: China to ISS?

The near-term uncertainty for the ISS partnership was a issue for 21st-century space exploration at the 61st International Astronautical Congress held in Prague, Czech Republic with space managers from industry and government cite the need for true international collaboration to accomplish meaningful space activities that includes China.

“Let’s cooperate on the big infrastructure, and transportation is big infrastructure,” says Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency. “I don’t think that we need more than one heavy-lift vehicle. This is my opinion. What I wish is to discuss with NASA, with Roscosmos, with Japan, with India, with China, why not?” - reports Frank Morring, Jr., Michael A. Taverna for Aviation Week from Prague.

Dordain is not the only agency head ready to admit China and India into the family of spacefaring nations and give them roles on the ISS. Anatoly N. Perminov, head of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, says he would also be willing to admit China to the space station.

“I am for the Chinese taking part in the International Space Station program,” Perminov tells Aviation Week through an interpreter. “But we understand the current situation, with the economic growth of China. And we take into account Chinese ambitions in piloted spaceflight. So I believe the Chinese themselves will not want to participate.”

That may be, given the diffuse nature of the Chinese leadership. But Zhou Jianping, the U.S.-educated head of the China Manned Space Engineering Program, headed a small delegation at the IAC from the military office that controls China’s human spaceflight program. Zhou’s organization is preparing for Bolden to visit Beijing at the end of this month.

Dordain and many others here believe exploration of the Solar System will be impossible without a coordinated effort divided among nations and persisting—by treaty—regardless of political changes in a given country.

“Let’s compete on the technology; let’s compete on the robotics; let’s compete on the science,” says Dordain, continuing his argument against “marginalizing” China and India. “A closed partnership is something that would not be sustainable.”