According to a law signed by Obama, funds of NASA cannot be used to collaborate with China or to host Chinese visitors at US space agency facilities

Some prominent American astronomers are boycotting a meeting called by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) next month on exoplanets due to a ban on attendance by Chinese scientists.

The restriction is based on a law passed in 2011 and signed by President Barack Obama that prevents NASA funds from being used to collaborate with China or to host Chinese visitors at US space agency facilities.

Among those leading the boycott are Debra Fischer, an astronomy professor at Yale University, and Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications,” Marcy wrote in an e-mail to the organisers.

The legal language that bans NASA cooperation with the Chinese was inserted into a funding bill by Congressman Frank Wolf, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

The law bans NASA funds from being used to work “bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company” or being “used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilised by NASA,” according to a copy of the legal text sent to AFP by Wolf’s assistant.

According to retired NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, who was born in the US to Chinese parents, Wolf and several other lawmakers are engaged in a “whole campaign” to prevent US aerospace involvement with China.

“Unfortunately, I think they are uninformed and they have got outdated ideas,” Chiao told AFP.

“Basically they are paranoid. They think China is trying to steal all of our technology.”

Chiao said he supports better ties with China, based on the model of space cooperation that has existed between the United States and Russia since the 1990s.

“Cooperating in space helps the relationship between countries in other areas as well,” he said.

Chiao said he applauded the scientists who are boycotting the astronomy conference, but said “they are a little misinformed, too. They think it is NASA’s fault. But NASA has its hands tied because of the federal laws.”