Chinks Demand Dry Cleaning Franchise on Space Station

http://www.newsmax.com/international/china_space/2007/10/16/41258.html

China Hopes for Place on Space Station

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

BEIJING -- China hopes to join an international space station project that

already counts leading space powers like the United States and Russia as its

members, a government official said Tuesday.

China takes great pride in its expanding space program and sees it as a way

to validate its claims to be one of the world's leading scientific nations.

On Tuesday, state-run newspapers said China will launch its first lunar

probe later this month, just weeks after regional rival Japan successfully

sent a lunar satellite into orbit.

But China does not participate in the International Space Station, due in

part to American unease about allowing a communist dictatorship a place

aboard.

"We hope to take part in activities related to the international space

station," Li Xueyong, a vice minister of science and technology. "If I am

not mistaken, this program has 16 countries currently involved and we hope

to be the 17th partner."

A reporter had asked whether China in the future would be more likely to

compete or cooperate with America in space. Li said China wanted to

cooperate with the United States, but gave no specifics.

In 2003, China launched its first manned space mission, making it the third

country to send a human into orbit on its own, after Russia and the United

States.

But China also alarmed the international community in January when it

blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite

missile. It was the first such test ever conducted by any nation, including

the United States and Russia.

That test was widely criticized for its military implications. A similar

rocket could be used to shoot military satellites out of space, and create a

dangerous haze of space debris.

Beijing insists however that it is committed to the peaceful use of space --

a stance that Li reiterated on Tuesday.

"The Chinese government has always pursued a foreign policy of peace and

consistently worked for the peaceful use of outer space," he said during a

briefing about China's development of science and education on the sidelines

of a key Communist Party Congress.

The space station's first section was launched in 1998 and it has been

inhabited continuously since 2000 by Russian, U.S. and European crew mates.

Japan's space agency said nearly two weeks ago that its lunar probe was in

high orbit over the moon and all was going well as it began a yearlong

project to map and study the lunar surface.

China's Chang'e 1 orbiter will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to

map three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and study its dust, Xinhua

has reported previously.

"Preparations for the moon-orbiting project have gone well and the launch

will be made at the end of October," Zhang Qingwei, director of State

Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, was

quoted as saying Tuesday by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The regional space rivalry is likely to be joined soon by India, which plans

to launch a lunar probe in April.