BEIJING: Chinese spacecraft may soon be allowed to dock with the International Space Station in what would signal an about-turn for Nasa.
The agency has previously been unable to work with China’s space agency owing to US policy, preventing them from becoming a partner on the ISS.
But it has been revealed that both Russia and the US are in discussion with the rising space power, and could allow its spacecraft to bring Chinese astronauts (taikonauts) to live on the station.
China has been a noticeable absentee from the ISS project to date, namely because American legislation prevents Nasa co-operating with them.
According to the policy drawn up by the US Congress in 2011, Nasa is not allowed to work ‘in any way with China’.
This has drawn criticism from many experts, such as UK Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, who called it a ‘deplorable “own goal” by the US.’
But in a recent event organised by the Starmus Festival at the Science Museum in London, attended by the MailOnline, former cosmonaut Alexei Leonov suggested that there are groundbreaking talks already taking place.
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