The incoming head of the European Space Agency, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, has said that the International Space Station should be opened up to astronauts from India and China.

"We need to get away from the principle of being a closed club," German magazine Spiegel quoted Johann-Dietrich Woerner as saying in a published interview.

The $100-billion space station, visible from Earth to the naked eye, is a habitable research outpost backed by 15 countries, including the United States, Russia and Germany.

However, China and India, despite their pioneering space missions, are not part of the group.

The space station is funded through 2020 and an extension until 2024 is under discussion.

An extension of the life of the space station would give the US space agency more time to develop the technologies needed for eventual human missions to Mars, the long-term goal of NASA's human space programme.

Keeping the station in orbit beyond 2020 also opens a window for commercial organistions and researchers to benefit from hefty investment in the outpost.

NASA's costs for operating the station, which orbits about 400 km (250 miles) above Earth, comes to about $3 billion a year.

Woerner also said that Europeans, who currently rely on Russia to travel into space, could launch their own manned rockets in five years. "I don't give up hope that we Europeans will manage our own take-off into orbit."

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an inter-governmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 20 member states, which include Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, of whom 18 are member states of the EU. Two other member states of the EU, Hungary and Estonia, have signed accession agreements to the ESA Convention and will soon become new ESA member states.

ESA has established formal cooperation with seven member states of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

ESA is also working with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes.

