Shutdown halts NASA efforts to re-invite banned Chinese researchers: organizers

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Shutdown halts NASA efforts to re-invite banned Chinese researchers: organizers

(Xinhua) 08:15, October 12, 2013

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 -- The U.S. government shutdown has halted efforts to re-invite Chinese researchers who were banned from attending an upcoming NASA conference on security grounds, organizers of the meeting said Friday, a day after the head of the U.S. space agency said it's "unfortunate" to refuse their applications.

"We have just learned that the efforts of NASA's Ames Research Center to ensure that our Chinese astronomer colleagues will be able to attend the Second Kepler Science Conference have been halted by the fact these approvals must be entered into a computer system at NASA HQ in Washington DC," the meeting organizers said in a statement.

"Because of the ongoing federal government shutdown, there is no one at NASA HQ who can complete the approval process," said the statement signed by co-chair of the conference, Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

"Of course, if the federal shutdown continues much longer, the conference will not be able to begin as scheduled on November 3, 2013," it said. "We fear that the meeting may have to be canceled as a result, or delayed."

On Thursday, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he had directed the space agency to reconsider the applications.

"Upon learning of this exclusion, I directed that we review the requests for attendance from scientists of Chinese origin and determine if we can recontact them immediately upon the reopening of the government to allow them to reapply," Bolden said.

"Any of them applying and meeting the clearance requirements in place for foreign citizens will be accepted for participation in the Conference," he added.

The meeting, scheduled for November at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, will be attended by researchers including those on both U.S. and international teams working on NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope program.

But six Chinese researchers, including those who worked at U.S. universities, were denied attendance. NASA officials said the rejection was done in accordance with a law passed in 2011 that prohibits government funds from being used to host Chinese nationals at NASA facilities.

The exclusion of Chinese researchers sparked a boycott by several prominent American researchers, including Debra Fischer, who leads a research group at Yale University, and Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is well-known for his pioneering work on exoplanets.

（Editor：YaoChun、Zhang Qian）