Q
qso1
Guest
vulture2:<br />China has no political alliance with Russia.<br /><br />Me:<br />At this time thats true. But they did procure the bulk of their space hardware from Russia and simply developed their version of it for human spaceflight. An arrangement like that could lead to joint ops. Especially if a vacuum for Russia, even China is created once the ISS program ends.<br /><br />I don't see that China will necessarily take a preeminent lead and I don't think they absolutely have to. They might but there is no great motivation as there was for the moon race in the cold war days whether percieved or real. China may want to demonstrate national pride but the slow approach it is taking suggests to me they see human space flight as a long term plan for them.<br /><br />vulture2:<br />Consequently it is difficult to understand NASA's rejection of a Chinese role in the ISS, and even more, the NASA administrator's refusal to visit the Chinese launch site because the Chinese would not give him free access to their launch control and other facilities.<br /><br />Me:<br />Pure politics if you ask me but I was told by a technician who worked there that back in the 1980s during the Spacelab program...the only people who couldn't have cameras in the O&C building were the techs themselves. When the Russians came to process the docking station for the shuttle Mir flights, they came in with cameras while techs were told by management they couldn't take pictures presumably for national security reasons. The tech did say the camera policy changed when Spacelab wound down. So I'm not so sure Chinese officials would not gain access, even if it was escorted access to KSC facilities if they so desired. But you did say getting clearance for even a student is difficult so I'm assuming you have had first hand experience with this.<br /><br />I personally think if private industry/enterprise can change the economic barriers to LEO that everyone will benefit eventually whether other nations buy, liscense <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>