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NASA bans Chinese scientists

Science is one field that should be pure, free from all forms of pressure from politics, religion and other bias or influence.

Unfortunately, this has almost never been the case -- in fact, some of the most significant boosts in science funding have come as a result of war (actual or imagined), national pride and other man-made forces.

WW1 and WW2 were responsible for massive advances and the creation or advancement of technologies that we now take for granted. The cold war of the 1950s and 1960s saw both Russia and the USA pour mind-boggling amounts of money into science programmes and the development of breakthrough technologies.

And let's not forget "The Space Race", where the national pride of Russia and the USA went head-to-head in an attempt to put man on the moon.

So, although science hates politics, it owes it a huge debt.

However, now the war between scientists and politicians has flared up again with news that NASA (under directive from the US administration) has denied Chinese scientists access to a conference, citing "national security" concerns as the reason.

Yes, even though some of these people are actually in the employ of the US government, they have been told not to bother turning up because they won't be admitted.

Now this hasn't gone down at all well with many non-Chinese scientists who have declared their intention to boycott the conference in protest. Not just individual scientists but entire US-based research groups are refusing to attend, claiming that the conference contains nothing that would affect "national security" -- being simply a forum for information relating to "planets, located trillions of miles away".

The conference was supposed to be a meeting of teams from all over the world who have been working on the NASA Kepler space telescope programme.

While the US administration cites the numerous attempts (and more than a few successes) by Chinese hackers against NASA and other US government computer systems, opponents of the sino-ban have pointed out that the USA itself is intent on creating a formidable cyber-warfare team and is not above reproach in this area.

Others have cited the various US electronic spy programmes that monitor world-wide communications and cite this as being little different to breaking into the computers of those concerned.

Pot, kettle, black -- are words that are being frequently rolled out in the discussion surrounding this matter.

So, although it is often the case that politics promotes science as a means to an end, this time, science is the victim of paranoia and politicians.

It is indeed a shame that sometimes, for every forward step we take towards maturity as a species, we end up taking two steps backwards due to the pettiness and myopia of those who have inveigled their way into positions of power.

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