Man pleads guilty to aiding Chinese space program

A Chinese-born U.S. physicist and businessman pleaded guilty Monday to bribing Chinese space program officials and illegally providing U.S. space launch data to the Beijing government. Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, of Newport News, Virginia, admitted his role before a federal judge in Norfolk. Authorities said the naturalized citizen had been the subject of a FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2003 to 2007. Under the plea deal, Shu admitted he had on three occasions offered bribes totaling nearly $200,000 on behalf of a client firm that ultimately won a $4 million contract. Shu also pleaded guilty to illegally exporting to the People's Republic of China technical data for design of a fueling system to be used to launch satellites and space stations into orbit.

Experts question use of space station

A new toilet. A second refrigerator. A new water recycling system. Philadelphia-born astronaut Christopher Ferguson and his colleagues delivered those items to the International Space Station yesterday in what NASA has called an extreme makeover. "It's the most jam-packed logistics module we have ever carried up there. We're taking a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house and turning it into a five-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a gym," Ferguson said in a pre-flight interview posted on NASA's Web site. The improvements were supposed to have been finished years ago. With the project far behind schedule, scientists and engineers on the ground worry that the United States will never get its money's worth from what is now the biggest engineering project in history.

Obama Taps Two Former NASA Officials for Space Agency Transition

President-elect Barack Obama has tapped two former NASA officials, Lori Garver and Roderic Young, to head up his transition efforts at the U.S. space agency. NASA employees were informed of the selection of Garver and Young in a Nov. 14. e-mail from NASA Chief of Staff Paul Morrell. Garver served as NASA's associate administrator for policy and plans from 1998 to 2001 and has been Obama's most visible space advisor during his campaign. Young worked for NASA in the late 1990s, serving roughly two years as then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin's press secretary. Garver currently works as an aerospace consultant for the Avascent Group here. Young is a senior vice president of TMG Strategies, an Arlington, Va.-based public relations firm.

Kazakhstan to fund ISS flight for homegrown astronaut

A Kazakh national will fly to the International Space Station in October 2009 "on a commercial basis," the Russian space agency said on Monday. "The only way a Kazakh astronaut can fly to the ISS is as part of a Russian expedition on a commercial basis for a period of 10 days," Talgat Musabayev, head of Kazakhstan's National Space Agency, was quoted as saying by Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. He said the Kazakh government had already given the go-ahead for the flight, while the country's ministry of economy and budget planning had earmarked funds in the national budget.

International Space Station turns 10

The International Space Station, one of the most ambitious space projects ever and a key launching board for exploration of the solar system, including Mars and beyond, turns 10 years old Thursday. In orbit some 190 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth, the ISS has a permanent crew of three astronauts that remain aboard for stays lasting several months. The crew will double to six in 2009 thanks to an addition brought by the space shuttle Endeavour, which is currently docked at the station. The United States has financed the bulk of the project, estimated to cost some 100 billion dollars. Fifteen other countries have also contributed, including Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil and eleven nations belonging to the European Space Agency. "The ISS is the largest ever experiment in international technological cooperation," said John Logsdon, a historian at the National Air and Space Museum in the US capital.