China In Space Finally!

[MA-Caver]

Centuries after inventing gunpowder and rockets and the means to ignite man's imagination to travel beyond his planet, China prepares for it's own reach into space.

China's astronauts brace for historic spacewalk

by Robert J. Saiget Wed Sep 24, 11:51 AM ET


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080924/ts_afp/chinaspace_080924155102
JIUQUAN, China (AFP) - Three Chinese astronauts made final preparations Wednesday for a mission that will include the nation's first ever space walk, saying they were confident of handling what will be a difficult but historic voyage.

Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng, all born in 1966 and all holding the rank of colonel, saluted stiffly as they appeared before journalists inside the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in a remote desert area in northwest China.
"I have lived, studied and trained with Zhigang and Haipeng for the past more than 10 years," said Liu, sitting in his blue astronaut uniform, separated from reporters by a window pane to avoid contamination.
"Especially in our training for Shenzhou VII, it's been going so well that we can cooperate without even having to use words."
The launch is scheduled for between 9:07 pm and 10:27 pm (1307 and 1427 GMT) on Thursday, Wang Zhaoyao, a spokesman for the manned space programme, told an earlier press conference.
"Shenzhou VII is a new breakthrough, a new leap, for our manned space programme," Zhai said in the televised press conference.
"It's a glorious mission, with historical significance. It's the highest honour for us astronauts to travel into space as representatives of the motherland."

My mind can't help but wander back in time as a kid when sitting on a beach near Cape Canaveral in Florida and waiting with my family to watch one of the Apollo missions (I forget which one) lift off. I do recall the image of that Saturn V rocket blasting off in a huge cloud of smoke and fire and though it was small because of where we were along the beach the roar of the engines still reached us and carried us along with it.
It was the time of the space race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Right now I can't help but wonder what would've happened if China joined in that race so long ago, launching their own vehicles into space? How much further along would we be by comparison. Sure the U.S. were the first on the moon that was because it had only one major competitor. Had things been just a tad different by throwing China into the mix ... what would've been the results from all three?

Something to wonder as we again will probably get back on the ball and up the ante.

 

[Sukerkin]

I agree in the sense that if we do not turn our gaze outwards and reach for the treasures that await us, we will turn our pettiness inwards and savage ourselves back into some semi-technological, theocratically driven , Dark Age.

 

[arnisador]

Good for them! Hopefully it'll be a kick in our scientific behinds.

 

[DavidCC]

With a billion people to work with, a lot can be accomplished.

For example they could have lined up 1 million people to stand north of Beijing with fans, to clear the pollution. Prolly need another 100,000 to continually hand out new fans (those cheap paper fans break easy).

I'm surprsied they are even using rockets, why not a human pyramid made of 250 million people?

1,000,000,000 is a LOT of man-power.