Secrecy vexes Sino-US space ties

With newly announced plans to launch a moon probe in a half decade, put three men into orbit by 2005, and build a small space station, Chinese officials seem to be maximizing their current moment in space history. They even got a patriotic bounce by having astronaut hero Yang Liwei go onstage in Hong Kong to sing a song with native-sonmovie star Jackie Chan.

Yet the official responses to the Oct. 16 manned launch may hold clues to the future of international cooperation with the newest member of the space club, sources say. While Russia's Vladimir Putin was immediate and effusive, the official US reaction came only when President Bush met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Bangkok days later.

Whether the US will unlock the currently closed door to shared participation in the 15-nation International Space Station, or whether China will discuss the details of its latest mission and address distrust in the American space community - could get answered in the next few months.

The nature of China's foray into the heavens - what part is military, what part civilian - and any cooperation China may seek, remains cloudy. Many US China watchers marvel that Beijing has been open at all about a program so secret that even a day before launch it was not known which of three astronauts would fly.

"China wants to wait to launch again," says Joan Johnson-Freese, a specialist with the Naval War College in Rhode Island. "Right now they've got a hero. They can rest on their laurels. They will go trawling in the international community to see what kind of cooperation they can get. They will probably start with the Europeans, and I think they will be well received."

China is already partnering with Europe on their Galileo navigation satellite system, an alternative to the US global positioning system.

"Everyone has reached out to talk about expanding cooperation with the Chinese with the exception of one country," says Ms. Johnson-Freese.

US authorities, however, will want greater actual give and take. Several report the experience of travel to China, being questioned closely about the American program, only to find a wall going up when questions were asked about the Chinese program.

Some former NASA officials say they are eager to find out the number of "redundant" systems in the Chinese program - the word used to describe backup systems such as extra computers, escape routes, and so on - designed to save the astronauts lives.

"The sophistication of your redundancy tells whether you have a real manned program, or not," says Robert Sieck, a former Apollo launch control director. Without these safety precautions - which account for 60 percent of NASA's time and money, according to Mr. Sieck - it is highly risky to launch people on a regular basis.

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