U.S., China to talk lunar exploration

President Bush aims to send NASA Administrator Mike Griffin to China to begin talks about teaming up on the exploration of the moon.

Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao huddled at the White House Thursday for a mini-summit that involved discussions on subjects ranging from human rights to global trade and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The possibility of U.S.-Chinese space cooperation was raised during a subsequent news briefing by Dennis Wilder, the Acting Senior Director of Asian Affairs for the White House National Security Council.

"The President, in the area of trying to deepen the relationship between our two societies and our two cultures, offered to send the NASA Administrator to China to begin to talk about lunar exploration with the Chinese, to talk about some of the things we need to do in space -- for example, debris avoidance and other subjects," Wilder said.

"There are some things that the Chinese also have in terms of sensor technology and information that we are interested in, in terms of global climate and other issues," he said.

Griffin probably would be sent later this year "to begin to consult on the subject of space exploration and where we might have common interests and where we might begin to work together as the two nations on the Earth with the most ambitious space programs in the 21st century at this point," Wilder said.

Bush in January 2004 unveiled a plan to send U.S. astronauts back to the moon between 2015 and 2020. NASA in August is expected to award a contract to build a new Crew Exploration Vehicle that would be capable of carrying four astronauts to the lunar surface for weeklong stays.

China in 2003 became only the third nation -- behind Russia and the U.S. -- to launch an astronaut into space. Last October, China launched a two-man crew on a five-day mission in low Earth orbit. China plans to launch its own space laboratory by around 2015.

The communist nation also has lunar ambitions. A Chinese spacecraft is scheduled to be launched into orbit around the moon next year, and a robotic rover is expected to fly around 2012. The Chinese intend to launch a robotic lunar sample return mission by 2017 and also is considering sending astronauts to the moon.

Luo Ge, Vice Administrator of China National Space Administration, visited Washington, D.C., and attended a national space symposium in Colorado earlier this month.

Reports from several U.S. news outlets at the time indicated that Ge expressed China's interest in cooperating with the U.S. on space exploration projects, including taking a role in the International Space Station.