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Foreign nations invited to the Chinese international space station project
China is opening up its military-run manned space program to foreign nations, seeking its own alliances as U.S. concerns see it excluded from the international space station project, analysts say.
The Asian country this week successfully carried out its first docking in orbit, and the Shenzhou VIII spacecraft involved in the delicate maneuver carried German life science and microgravity experiments on board.
It is just one small step, but it is the first time any other country has been given access to China's flagship manned spaceflight program since it began 20 years ago.
In contrast, Beijing readily cooperates internationally in other fields such as astrophysics and Earth observation.
Isabelle Sourbes-Verger, a China space program expert at France's National Centre for Scientific Research, said the internationalization of its manned flights showed China was no longer playing catch-up with other nations.
Germany had an interest in broadening its choice of launchers for its regular microgravity experiments, she said, adding that nothing was forcing the Chinese to open up their program to external partners.
The implication, she said, is that Beijing no longer sees the field as primarily the domain of the military.
The final frontier has long been an arena of competition between global superpowers, as evidenced in the 1950s and '60s by the race between Moscow and Washington to be first in orbit, to put a man into space and go to the Moon.
Asia's new superpower began its manned exploration of space in 1990, on the back of bought-up Russian technology as the Soviet Union broke up, and placed the project under the purview of the People's Liberation Army.
China is only the third country to send humans into space and has announced plans to build a space laboratory by 2016 and a permanent space station by 2020.
A Chinese astronaut trainer is among six volunteers who will emerge Friday into the outside world after spending almost 18 months in isolation at a Russian centre to test the effects on humans of a flight to Mars.
But unlike the Russians, Europeans and Japanese, China is not part of the multi-billion-dollar International Space Station project, which began before Beijing had developed an advanced space program of its own.
It still remains excluded because of American concerns over its intentions, experts say.
It's all because of resistance from the USA, said Morris Jones, an Australian based expert on the Chinese space program. This is mainly due to security reasons, but it also involves politics.
Undaunted, Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned spaceflight program, said Beijing would seek concrete co-operation and active exchanges with all the countries of the world on the basis of openness and transparency.
How far that cooperation will extend remains unclear, however, and in space it can be a long march to the future.
Military space program opens to int'l cooperation - The China Post
China is opening up its military-run manned space program to foreign nations, seeking its own alliances as U.S. concerns see it excluded from the international space station project, analysts say.
The Asian country this week successfully carried out its first docking in orbit, and the Shenzhou VIII spacecraft involved in the delicate maneuver carried German life science and microgravity experiments on board.
It is just one small step, but it is the first time any other country has been given access to China's flagship manned spaceflight program since it began 20 years ago.
In contrast, Beijing readily cooperates internationally in other fields such as astrophysics and Earth observation.
Isabelle Sourbes-Verger, a China space program expert at France's National Centre for Scientific Research, said the internationalization of its manned flights showed China was no longer playing catch-up with other nations.
Germany had an interest in broadening its choice of launchers for its regular microgravity experiments, she said, adding that nothing was forcing the Chinese to open up their program to external partners.
The implication, she said, is that Beijing no longer sees the field as primarily the domain of the military.
The final frontier has long been an arena of competition between global superpowers, as evidenced in the 1950s and '60s by the race between Moscow and Washington to be first in orbit, to put a man into space and go to the Moon.
Asia's new superpower began its manned exploration of space in 1990, on the back of bought-up Russian technology as the Soviet Union broke up, and placed the project under the purview of the People's Liberation Army.
China is only the third country to send humans into space and has announced plans to build a space laboratory by 2016 and a permanent space station by 2020.
A Chinese astronaut trainer is among six volunteers who will emerge Friday into the outside world after spending almost 18 months in isolation at a Russian centre to test the effects on humans of a flight to Mars.
But unlike the Russians, Europeans and Japanese, China is not part of the multi-billion-dollar International Space Station project, which began before Beijing had developed an advanced space program of its own.
It still remains excluded because of American concerns over its intentions, experts say.
It's all because of resistance from the USA, said Morris Jones, an Australian based expert on the Chinese space program. This is mainly due to security reasons, but it also involves politics.
Undaunted, Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned spaceflight program, said Beijing would seek concrete co-operation and active exchanges with all the countries of the world on the basis of openness and transparency.
How far that cooperation will extend remains unclear, however, and in space it can be a long march to the future.
Military space program opens to int'l cooperation - The China Post
