Well as you know there have been many joint efforts in space over the last few years and decades. Who can the dockings between the US and Russian Soviets in Space. Nowdays there is a much friendleir atmosphere between Russia and the Americans and there is oftentimes close contact between NASA and Russia and there are alos strong international efforts such as the ISS. The Europeans have also been a close partner of NASA, giving the US space industry billions of dollars and doing joint work on projects like the Hubble, the Ulysses mission, the Cassini mission to explore Saturn & Titan, the JWST and others projects, it is possible that the EU space scientists are some of NASA's closest and best partnerships in these types of projects.
Recently a new player has arrrived in Space, it is China and its industries and economy have been growing rapidly. These Chinese also have plans to build improved rockets, develop their manned missions more and may be looking at setting up a Lunar base sometime in the future. Recently the Chinese have done a joint co-operative mission with Europe's ESA with Double-Star a mission to explore and map the Earth's magenetosphere. Recently Sean O’Keefe in Washington had a meeting with Sun Laiyan, head of China’s National Space Administration, two weeks earlier Chinese representatives joined a NASA Washington workshop and talked about O’Keefe going to China in 2005. We have had some debate on this before here and talk on remarks from Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin who had said that China could be eyeing a future piloted flight of the Moon using their craft and a mission would propel a crew into space and around the Moon without landing. Buzz Aldrin said he welcomed having another nation moving in the same direction in space and said 'We ( the USA )could be useful to them, and they ( Chinese ) could be useful to us' he had talked about the idea to eventually use Shenzhou as a lifeboat for the International Space Station which would relieve the USA from having to develop a new spacestation vehicle, also when Yang went around the US he saw Bill Nelson and Aldrin and Yang said “ .. we could cooperate with each other very well and contribute together (for) the whole of humankind” we might have heard this idea many times but now is it really possible? There are reports that the US and China will agree to establish a "regular exchange mechanism". Shenzhou spacecraft has a built-in docking ring that would allow it to park at the station. American astronaut Lee Morin been hinting at something like this from his talks at the Beijing University. If China and the USA do some type of joint project, what kind of mission will NASA be doing ?

I think it's a splendid idea, as I take the rather naive and unsophisticated view that the more people study what's out there the better, and that if we could all be friends it would be a much better world.

There are some pretty sticky political realities to deal with, though. Both nations are rather prickly and defensive when it comes to outsiders knowing their secrets. There's a lot of negative rhetoric going around, whether from the Chinese side or the US - compounded by a lack of understanding. Not to mention ideological differences. I also suspect that China might have problems being a junior partner with the US, but not have the funds or expertise to shoulder 50% of the burden.

I'd like to see more cooperation between the two countries. But I'm not holding my breath.

I thought the US were threating to blow up a Chinese satellite not long ago

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