A U.S. astronaut on the final shuttle mission said on Friday China's first space station will be a welcome addition to the orbital brotherhood, Reuters reported. "China being in space I think is a great thing. The more nations that get into space, the better cooperation we'll have with each," Atlantis astronaut Rex Walheim said during an in-flight interview with Reuters. "Space is one of the biggest international brotherhoods we have." The first module of China's planned Tiangong-I space station arrived at its Gobi Desert launch site on June 29, the Xinhua news agency reported. It is scheduled to fly later this year on a Long March rocket and is to be visited by Chinese astronauts -- known as taikonauts -- next year.
