此起彼伏的国际空间站合作,由于欧洲、美国、日本和加拿大的政府及空间机构的代表于去年5月中在华盛顿恢复谈判而趋向好转。讨论集中在美国于4月底向可能的空间站合作者提出新的初步建议书上。这项建议已是过去两年里美国提出的第五、第六次草案了。由于美国国防部坚持空间站用于军事目的,以及美国人拒绝考虑欧洲载人自由飞行器(MTFF)作为空间站系统的一部分,致使合作受到 The growing number of ISS collaborations have tended to turn positive as representatives of the government and space agencies in Europe, the United States, Japan and Canada have resumed their talks in Washington last May. The discussion focused on the United States putting a new preliminary proposal to potential space station partners at the end of April. This proposal is the fifth and sixth draft that the United States has proposed in the past two years. As a result of the Department of Defense’s insistence that space stations serve military purposes and the Americans’ refusal to consider the European manned free-flight spacecraft (MTFF) as part of the space station system,