Korea to join in building space station

Korea is expected to participate in the building of the International Space Station(ISS), which will be fully operation starting in 2005.

Korea and the United States held the fourth joint maritime, environmental and scientific conference Sept. 18-19 in Washington, D.C., with the attendance of the director general of the international economic affairs bureau, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, as Korea`s chief delegate, and assistant secretary for maritime, environmental and scientific affairs of the U.S. Department of State, as his American counterpart.

The participants agreed on Korean participation in the ISS and 10 other joint projects for scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries, and decided to work out detailed programs for their actual implementation.

The ISS construction project, led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), is being undertaken with participation by Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil and 11 European nations -- 16 countries in total. The task to be assigned to the Korean Aerospace Research Institute(KARI) is to develop a module that will carry a cosmic ray detection device.

alchimiste@donga.com