Nasa News> Obama Moves to Counter China: & Private Space Companies Press Their Case:

[giovonni]

Obama Moves to Counter China in Space With Pentagon-NASA Lin
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aOvrNO0OJ41g&refer=japan

Nasa related story;
With U.S. Help, Private Space Companies Press Their Case: Why Not Us?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30spacside.html

[Dantheman62]

If China puts a man on the moon, that in itself isn’t necessarily a threat to the U.S.,” said Dean Cheng, a senior Asia analyst with CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Virginia-based national-security research firm. “But it would suggest that China had reached a level of proficiency in space comparable to that of the United States.”

Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program -- which spent about $22 billion in fiscal year 2008, almost a third more than NASA’s budget -- could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending.

NASA faces a five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first launch of Orion, the six- person craft that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. Obama has said he would like to narrow that gap, during which the U.S. will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station.

[Dantheman62]

China is designing satellites that, once launched, could catch up with and destroy U.S. spy and communication satellites, said a Nov. 20 report to Congress from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China’s State Council Information Office declined to comment on the nation’s anti-satellite or manned programs.

To boost cooperation between NASA and the Pentagon, Obama has promised to revive the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents, most actively from 1958 to 1973.

The move would build ties between agencies with different cultures and agendas