Elon Musk wants NASA and China to work together to develop the space industry. But Musk's desire was immediately blocked by a sizeable political problem.
Musk expressed his hope when responding to The Mars Society's article entitled "US and China: Cooperation or competition in space?".
"Some collaboration would be great," Musk wrote in a tweet on Twitter, as quoted from Futurism, Thursday (23/9/2021).
Some amount of cooperation would be good
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2021
But Musk's desire seems to be only a hope because the United States government has regulations that prohibit NASA from collaborating with China.
In 2011, the US Congress passed the Wolf Amendment which prohibits NASA from using federal funds to conduct bilateral cooperation with the Chinese government without the approval of the FBI and the US Congress. This rule was passed to prevent the practice of espionage by the Chinese military.
As a result, China cannot access the International Space Station (ISS) like other NASA partner countries. They also decided to develop their own space station, named Tiangong.
Musk did not say what form of cooperation he hopes to take between NASA and China. The SpaceX CEO may be inspired to see China's success in landing a robotic rover on Mars and their efforts to build their own space station.
Or maybe Musk sees NASA and Russia ceasing to operate the ISS by 2024. If the ISS ceases to operate, then the US and NASA will no longer have a permanent presence in space.
Not only that, SpaceX also relies on cargo and crew launches to the ISS as one of the largest sources of revenue. Musk certainly doesn't want his company to lose a major source of revenue, and may be planning to use the Chinese space station to keep going back and forth into space.
Unlike the US Congress, which is tough on China, Musk actually has a pretty good relationship with the Bamboo Curtain country, especially through his electric car company Tesla. Musk recently praised Chinese-made electric cars even though they are Tesla's big competitors.
