Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) wrote NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden yesterday telling him that cooperation with China on the International Space Station (ISS) is not permissible.

The letter is in response to a media report that bringing China into the ISS partnership was discussed at a recent meeting in Canada of the heads of the agencies already participating in the multinational ISS partnership. Wolf is a staunch opponent of U.S.-China space cooperation because of China’s human rights violations. He chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.

Calling any effort to involve China in the ISS program “misguided, and not in our national interest,” Wolf asked for a detailed briefing on what was said about China at the Canadian “Heads of Agencies” meeting. The Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roscosmos (the Russian space agency), and NASA are partners in the ISS program.

Wolf sponsored language in the FY2011 and FY2012 appropriations bills that fund NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) sharply limiting U.S.-China cooperation on science and technology, especially the space program.