NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Wednesday he's "optimistic" that his agency can work together with China eventually in the area of human spaceflight, despite a ban by the U.S. Congress on space cooperation between the two countries.
"I am optimistic because we do work with China, we work collaboratively with them with Congressional knowledge," Bolden said, citing collaborative research with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of Earth science, including geodetics and glacial characterization in the Himalaya region.
"In the area of human spaceflight, I think it will come in time, ... but be patient," he told an event hosted by the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, noting that it might "take a generational change" for that to happen.
Bolden refused to directly criticize the China partnership ban, first introduced in 2011 by Frank Wolf, then-chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, only saying that "no one can say what will happen in the Congress."
Earlier this week, Wolf's House successor, John Culberson, slammed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for its recent participation in a State Department-led meeting in Beijing on bilateral U.S.-China civil space cooperation.
"NASA has failed to provide the committee with details on the depth and scope of the meetings hosted by the Department of State," alleged Culberson in a statement to space news site SpacePolicyOnline.com, while vowing to "vigorously enforce" the ban.
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