Comments on: China to ramp up manned missions to build space station

By: wayne

wayne — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 19:01:15 +0000

wodun-
Excellent point.
(as-if China isn’t a totalitarian-communist existential threat to the entire World)

By: wodun

wodun — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 18:50:45 +0000

but this deal is purely commercial and therefore considered legal.

There is nothing purely commercial in China.

By: Willi

Willi — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 05:12:43 +0000

Among the cargo is a 3.5-kilogram device from the Beijing Institute of Technology that sought to answer questions like “Does the space radiation and microgravity cause mutations among antibody-encoding genes and how does it happen?”
The Chinese payload was first reported in 2015, when an agreement was reached with NanoRacks, a Houston-based company that offers services for the commercial utilization of the space station.
Under the agreement, NanoRacks will deliver the device to the U.S. side of the space station and astronauts there will conduct studies using the device in about two weeks, data from which will be sent back to the Chinese researchers.
There is a U.S. law in place, known as the Wolf amendment, that bans cooperation between the U.S. space agency NASA and Chinese government entities, but this deal is purely commercial and therefore considered legal.

By: Anthony Domanico

Anthony Domanico — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 02:41:45 +0000

Willi,

That is interesting. Do you know anything else about the experiment? Is it a joint investigation with us or one of our partner nations?

By: Willi

Willi — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 01:12:44 +0000

Hmmm, the load of stuff brought up to the ISS by CRS-11 includes a Chinese experiment. Interesting…