China's Space Plans

China Plans More Missions, Space Station
By Joe McDonald
Associated Press Writer
posted: 11:00 am ET
16 October 2003



BEIJING (AP) -- Hours after declaring its first manned space mission a
success, a triumphant China said Thursday it wants eventually to send
up a permanently inhabited space station.

The station will follow further flights of Shenzhou space capsules
meant to develop spacewalking and orbital docking skills, space
program officials said at a news conference. They said the next
Shenzhou should be launched by 2005.

The officials didn't say when a space station might be launched or
give any details of its operation.

``The maiden manned spaceflight is the first step of China's space
program,'' said Xie Mingbao, director of the China Manned Space
Program Engineering Office. The next stage, he said, would be a space
lab that can support a crew for limited periods.

``The third step is to develop a space station according to demand and
solve the problems related to the application of a manned space
station,'' Xie said.

The announcement, vague as it was, came as a striking change from the
usual secrecy of China's military-linked manned space program. It
clearly was prompted by the success of the 21-hour flight of Shenzhou
5, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei four hours earlier.

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A visibly delighted Xie grinned throughout his news conference and
several times told reporters, ``I'm happy to answer your questions.''

Foreign experts had long believed Beijing was studying the possibility
of an orbital station. And Chinese scientists talk of hopes for a
mission to the moon -- or even Mars.

But space officials had previously avoided expressing official support
for such plans.

Xie said China's space station ambitions are modest.

``Our space program has just begun developing China's space lab,'' he
said. ``We are not actually planning to catch up with the (former
Russian) Mir space station or the International Space Station at this
moment.''

China doesn't participate in the International Space Station, due in
part to American unease about allowing a communist dictatorship a
place aboard. Asked whether Beijing wanted to join the ISS, Xie said
his government was willing to cooperate ``on an equal basis'' with
other space programs.

Some ordinary Chinese have criticized the cost of the manned space
program in a country where the average person makes just $700 a year.
The government said Thursday that the cost totaled $2.2 billion so
far.

But Xie insisted that China also had sound reasons to pursue such a
costly goal as its own manned space station. Echoing the sort of
promises made by boosters of the U.S. Apollo program that put the
first man on the moon in 1969, he said it would drive advances in
chemistry, electronics and new high-tech materials.

``In the future, China is sure to need top high-tech talents. And only
a mission as difficult as this one can nurture those top talents,''
Xie said. Also, he said, success in space could ``inspire greater
patriotic fervor.''

China has had a rocketry program since the 1950s, regularly launches
scientific and commercial satellites and started its manned space
program in 1992.

Foreign experts say technology developed by the manned program
suggests that it has been working from the start toward the goal of a
long-term presence in orbit.

Engineers who drew on the Russian Soyuz capsule to design the Shenzhou
added maneuvering rockets needed for space docking, the experts say.
And they say four earlier unmanned Shenzhou launches were used to
practice firing capsules into precise orbits, which would be needed to
link vessels or visit an orbital station.

Xie said the next Shenzhou flight would take place ``in one or two
years' time.'' Though he didn't say so, the capsule would almost
surely be manned. Hong Kong media have suggested the next flight of
the three-seat craft might carry two astronauts.

However, another official, Zhou Xiaofei, said no docking or
spacewalking practice was planned for that mission.

Xie also said China has no plans to develop a space shuttle similar to
the U.S. fleet, which has been grounded following the disintegration
of the Columbia on re-entry in February.