> It would most likely be a lease arrangement with the BA330 operated by Bigelow Aerospace or another American party. Ditto with any other nation wanting a turnkey space program. The only thing that is going to be transfered is docking adaptors and prox ops procedures.<br /><br />I attended an ITAR lecture at ISDC '06, leasing to a foriegn entity would be under ITAR scrutiny just as selling. It's not only who owns the object, but who has access to it. The same shotgun you buy at Norm's Guns N Ammo is under ITAR if you ship it to China. Foriegners leasing a BA-330 would still have eyeball-access to the vehicle, plus the Bigelow units will be stuffed with custom life support and other hardware. All of which means that ITAR is a stumbling block to Chinese sales. I recommend reading about the separations involved in the SeaLaunch effort to understand this: they have a firewall between Russian/Ukrainian technicians for the Zenit rocket and the American satellite technicians. <br /><br />Per the lecture I mentioned, ITAR is a "narrow keyhole" instead of a wall. With proper lead-time and the proper anti-IP-theft measures you can ship/launch/sell to other countries. But you absolutely have to jump through the hoops to make it happen, Dept. of Commerce/State has enforcement capability on this. Mr. Bigelow has obviously passed his ITAR paperwork for Russian launch, which is a huge step. <br /><br />I wouldn't be as sure about the fallability of Chinese aerospace manufacturing. If the Shen Zhou is any indication, they are on the cutting edge of human spaceflight. <br /><br />Alok - you're welcome!<br /><br />Some predictions: a Shen Zhou capsule will dock with the ISS before NASA's next capsule. The Chinese space station with that 10-port "node" will be built, but will end up docked to the Russian Segment in place of the Docking&Stowage module. Dupont-Teijin Films will be the first manufacturer in LEO, with a man-tended station sometime around 2015 running co-planar with a Bigelo <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>