Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury China Coop Aff

partly because they do not want to overly excite expectations that they cannot live up to,” he said. Such cooperation raises a number of foreign policy issues for both countries, but at least some in the US believe it’s time to engage China on space, rather than try to contain it. “Somehow, our strategy of containment, if its goal is to prevent you [China] from becoming a spacefaring nation, isn’t working,” said John Hamre, president of CSIS and a former deputy secretary of defense during the Clinton Administration, in introductory remarks at the April 3 event. Despite Luo’s statements, it’s likely some in Congress will continue to see China’s space program as a competitive threat to the US. According to the published accounts of the March 30 hearing, some used the perceived space race with China as proof that NASA needed more funding. According to Space News, Tom DeLay said that he would fight to get up to $5 billion added to NASA’s budgets in the coming years to accelerate development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle, citing China’s program as the reason. “We had a 40-year lead in space and we’re giving it up. The US is quibbling over $3 billion to $5 billion. It’s amazing to me,” he said. It is certainly tempting for space advocates to build up the threat of a space race with China—even if such a competition is highly unlikely—to help loosen Congressional purse strings and allow NASA to free itself from its current budget crunch. However, that short-term gain must be tempered by long-term risks: if a space race does not materialize, future Congresses and Administrations may revisit NASA’s budget and take away the funding it previously added. Worse, if the Vision for Space Exploration becomes associated, in the eyes of Congress or the public, as NASA’s instrument in a space race with China, the Vision itself could become threatened down the road when that race does not take shape. However, such long-term planning is not necessarily Congress’s forte, and some members of Congress have even shorter time horizons: on April 4, DeLay announced that he would be resigning from Congress by June, late enough to still be around when NASA delivers its report on China’s space program, but not nearly long enough to shepherd through the additional funding he claims is needed for NASA to counter the Chinese threat. There are signs, though, that cooperation may yet take hold between NASA and CNSA. After his CSIS speech, Luo flew to Colorado Springs to speak at the National Space Symposium. After his speech, he revealed to SPACE.com that he plans to invite Michael Griffin to come to China this fall. That may be the first step towards cooperation between the two nations’ space programs, or, at the very least, defuse any notions of a space race that, in the long run, could do NASA more harm than good.

(Aaron R., Advancing Sino-U.S. Space Cooperation, April 2009, p. 10-11, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA539619, accessed 6/29/11) EK