An accord to cooperate with India on an unmanned moon mission was
sewn up this week and talks are on the horizon with China, a potential
competitor that wants to land on the moon.
It's no surprise the U.S. space agency is seeking fresh collaboration with
two emerging economic powers, space experts said, since what happens in space is
often driven by politics on the ground. Earlier this year, President Bush met
with leaders of both India and China.
"It's clearly aligned with the foreign policy views of the current
administration," said Eligar Sadeh, a space studies professor at the University
of North Dakota. "Space is a visible and symbolic area of cooperation that is
often used for political purposes ... and specific foreign policy initiatives."
During a visit to the Indian Space Research Organization in Bangalore earlier
this week, NASA administrator Michael Griffin, said he hoped to expand the
United States' space partnership with India "on many more technically
challenging and scientifically rewarding projects."
India already has a well-regarded space program focused on satellites. In
2007 or 2008, it will send up its first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, with two
U.S. instruments aboard.
That collaboration came less than a year after President Bush and Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached several strategic cooperation agreements.
"NASA's participation is a welcome sign," said S. Krishnamurthy, director of
public relations for the Indian Space Research Organization.
The United States helped India set up its rocket launch station in the 1960s,
and the two nations have shared satellite data and signed more than 100 space
agreements in the past.
In recent years, India's nuclear policy thwarted more cooperation. In 1998,
the United States imposed temporary sanctions after India conducted nuclear
tests. The last significant new space accord between the two nations was signed
five years ago. In March, though, the United States said it would agree to share
American nuclear knowledge and fuel with India, even though India won't sign the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
"Now that the White House has indicated a desire to treat India as an
important strategic partner, cooperation in high visibility areas such as space
is a good way to symbolize that relationship," John M. Logsdon, director of the
Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said in an e-mail.
The United States has a long history of using its space program for
diplomatic ends. The in-flight rendezvous between the U.S. Apollo and Soviet
Soyuz spacecraft in 1975 was the result of detente between the two Cold War
enemies. The construction of the international space station has helped engage
Russia and strengthen alliances with Europe and Japan.
Although NASA press secretary Dean Acosta said Griffin's trip to India had
nothing to do with the upcoming visit to China, the success in India may give
the NASA chief a little leverage, said James Lewis, director of technology
policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think
tank.
No date or agenda has been set yet for the China trip.
"If he can go to China with agreements with other partners, like India, it
doesn't give the sense that we're desperate," Lewis said. "It's not like we're
coming with bent knees to the Chinese."
Such a perception is important given some U.S. policymakers view China as a
potential competitor in the race to return humans to the moon. President Bush
offered to send Griffin to China last month during Chinese President Hu Jintao's
visit to Washington.
Cooperating in space was seen as an effort "to deepen the relationship
between our two societies and our two cultures," Acosta said in an e-mail.
