Word: shenzhou
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LANDED. FEI JUNLONG, 40, and NIE HAISHENG, 41, the crew of the Shenzhou VI, China's second manned spacecraft; in Inner Mongolia. Last year, China became the third country after the U.S. and Russia to send humans into space. The launch of the Shenzhou VI, China's first space mission with two astronauts, was broadcast live on Chinese television, as were images of Fei and Nie emerging triumphantly from the space capsule at the end of their 115-hour, 32-minute trip. China's space program has announced plans for its first extravehicular space walk...
...alarm bell went off at 9 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2003. That was the moment when China's Shenzhou V spacecraft lifted off the pad carrying Yang Liwei, a 38-year-old lieutenant colonel and former fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army. Although his flight was only 21 hours long, Yang's accomplishment triggered a historic outpouring of national pride, with China's state media portraying the country's first manned space shot as a triumph of native science, technology and collective will. Soon after the success of Shenzhou V, China upped the ante, announcing plans to launch...
...Japan, the Shenzhou V launch was met with disbelief and anxiety that continues to reverberate among scientific and political circles. "We were surprised," says Masashi Okada, a launch-systems engineer at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the country's equivalent of NASA. "Obviously we knew they were working toward it, but they achieved manned flight very quickly." Japan's own space program had been in decline for years, hobbled by a habit of following the U.S.'s lead and by domestic regulatory barriers that bar programs with potential military applications. Between 1999 and 2004, the space program's budget...
...applications," says Axel Berkofsky, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Center in Brussels. And although manned space flight is reputed to be an inefficient way to develop military prowess, a recent study by the East Asian nonproliferation project at the Monterey Institute of International Studies concluded that the Shenzhou program has improved China's imaging and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as the maneuverability of its satellites. A 2001 Pentagon report declared that the militarization of space was inevitable and that China would be the U.S.'s leading rival in this arena...
...tomorrow." Lieut. Colonel Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, shortly before liftoff of the Shenzhou V spacecraft...