Word: shenzhou
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...smoke detectors and cordless vacuum cleaners born of NASA. Above all, the piloted space program is good propaganda. "Just as England went to North America and made it British, China needs to stake its claim in space," says Xu Shijie, a spacecraft designer who has worked on the Shenzhou...
...course, that assumes the thing works. China's space record is mixed. Beijing launched its first satellite in 1970--which broadcast back to Earth the Maoist anthem The East Is Red--but that program suffered a string of disastrous explosions in the mid-1990s. The Shenzhou has flown only four times in unmanned trials, in contrast with the Mercury program, which NASA tested more than a dozen times before Alan Shepard became the first American in space in 1961. All four Shenzhou craft returned from orbit, but not all accomplished their missions. The Shenzhou II is widely believed to have...
Meanwhile, China's new entrepreneurs are focusing, in true capitalist fashion, on how to exploit space travel for a quick buck. Stamps bearing the Shenzhou image have become collectors' items, and the Jianlibao company promotes its sports drinks with pictures of an astronaut. Several companies even applied to put their corporate logos on the side of the spacecraft for its first manned launch. Beijing declined, perhaps feeling that Shenzhou is its own best...
...spectacular failures for China's space program, Lieut. Colonel Yang Liwei, a diminutive ex-fighter pilot, roared into the heavens to become China's first man in space. During his 21-hour journey in the heavens, the 38-year-old Yang maneuvered weightlessly in the tight compartment of the Shenzhou V capsule, taking photographs, naps, and at one point producing a tiny Chinese flag?an iconic image that would soon be broadcast to 1.3 billion fellow citizens back home. The mission-control room outside Beijing burst into cheers, already buoyed by a message from President Hu Jintao who announced that...
...sick man of Asia," seemed confident of its own economic and political power, as comfortable strutting its stuff on the international stage as any member of the G-8. "Now, no one can look down on us anymore," crowed Xue Ping, a Shanghai-based software entrepreneur who was perusing Shenzhou V memorabilia at a local street market on the afternoon of the launch. "After a long time of being considered the little kids, we can now sit at the adult table...