Word: shenzhou
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...technological accomplishment, the three-man mission had a 1960s twang. During his 13-minute sortie outside the Shenzhou VII capsule, Zhai Zhigang demonstrated the effectiveness of a Chinese spacesuit, retrieved a rack attached to the outside of the capsule that was part of a lubricants test, had a "Greetings, earthlings" cameo (Zhai's actual words: "Greetings to all the people of the nation and all the people of the world") and brandished a Chinese flag...
...China has yet to declare a plan to put an astronaut on the moon. But that is the ultimate goal of the steps its program has been taking, says Johnson-Freese. On October 15 and 16, 2003, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei completed 14 orbits of the earth in Shenzhou V, making China the third nation after the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. to put a human into space independently. Two years later Shenzhou VI carried two Chinese astronauts into space. This week's Shenzhou VII spacewalk is part of preparations for constructing a Chinese space lab. Subsequent flights would carry...
...Sept. 25, the Shenzhou VII is scheduled to launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in western Gansu province in prime time between 9:07p.m. and 10:27 p.m. The mission will be the country's first to carry three astronauts - or hangtianyuan, as they are called in Chinese - into orbit. The spacecraft, a modified version of the Russian Soyuz vessel, will carry a Russian and a Chinese-designed space suit. "This is big," says Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. "It's not easy to design...
...astronauts are scheduled to don the spacesuits, and one will make the historic spacewalk. A small monitoring satellite will be released from the ship during the mission. The crew is People's Liberation Army Air Force fighter pilots Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng. "Shenzhou VII is another breakthrough in China's development of manned spaceflght, and we are entrusted with an honorable mission with historical significance," Zhai told a pre-launch press conference on Sept. 24. "As an astronaut, it is the greatest honor to launch into space on behalf of our motherland...
...launching another rover and returning with samples in 2017. While there have been declarations by some space officials of when China could put a man on the moon - Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's Chang'e lunar probe, once said 2017; the deputy head of the Shenzhou program said 2020 - there is no official timetable. The U.S., the only nation to land astronauts on the moon, says it hopes to return by 2020. But it may be racing China for the silver medal...