NASA official to visit Chinese counterparts
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-26 07:31
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has
accepted an invitation to visit China to start talks on possibly cooperating
with the Chinese in some areas of space.
"I think the United States always benefits from discussions and I do not see
how it can hurt us," Griffin told members of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on
Science and Space in Washington on Tuesday.
NASA spokesman Dean Acosta said no date or agenda has been set for a China
visit by Griffin. Chinese President Hu Jintao met with President George W. Bush
in Washington last week.
China launched its first manned space mission in 2003, making it the third
country to send a human into orbit on its own, after Russia and the United
States. A second, longer mission carrying two astronauts was completed last
year.
Chinese space officials have said they hope to land an unmanned probe on the
moon by 2010 and want to launch a space station, causing some to view China as a
space rival to the United States. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration hopes to return astronauts to the moon by 2018.
Griffin's announcement about the invitation from China came in response to a
blunt question from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat: "Where do you see
us going with China - competitor or colleague?"
The administrator noted that few people 20 years ago would have believed it
possible for the United States and Russia to be cooperating today on the
international space station.
"The United States needs good competitors and it needs good partners and
sometimes they can be the same," Griffin said.
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