20 May 2013
During a press event announcing the flight of British ESA astronaut Timothy Peake, BBC journalist Jonathan Amos, took the opportunity to ask ESA's Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations about ESA's plans for flight opportunities with China. Dr. Thomas Reiter answered: "We are exploring this possibility. We had some exchange with the Chinese Manned Space Agency. Some of my colleagues were visiting them in Beijing. We had a delegation visiting us at the European Astronaut Centre for exchanging some views on the training environment, training programmes, on technical aspects of rendezvous and docking, life support systems and of course scientific work. We have assigned now three colleagues from the European Astronaut Centre to language training. One astronaut actually is among this group. We are looking to the possibility also to explore flight opportunities with our Chinese partners. But once again: these are little steps that need to be seen. It is a first exchange of ideas and of learning to know each other."
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