The World : Europeans, NASA to Talk

Ministers of the 14-nation European Space Agency agreed to begin negotiations to join the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s program to build the first permanent space station for deployment in 1992. G.M.V. Van Aardenne, the Dutch minister of economic affairs, said the ministers agreed unanimously to open negotiations with NASA by the April 1 deadline on Western European participation. But Van Aardenne said that whether the agency goes ahead with the project “will depend on the terms and conditions of the . . . agreement to be concluded with the United States.”