The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will eventually put a man on the moon, accomplishments that would certainly bring the country international prestige. So says the People’s Daily. The launching of Shenzhou VII from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, which is in western China, was shown live on state television. At a ceremony before the launching, President Hu Jintao praised the space project's effort. "You will definitely accomplish this glorious and sacred mission," he told the astronauts before the launch. "The motherland and the people are looking forward to your triumphant return."

     After the “Historic” flight, mission commander Zhai Zhigang, 41, and his two fellow astronauts arrived in Beijing as newspapers were filled with praise for their historic 68-hour voyage on board the Shenzhou VII spacecraft. “Shenzhou VII has touched down. “The Heroes Have Returned Successfully”, a typical headline read in the popular tabloid Beijing Times stretching across the front page.
     The astronauts landed last Sunday on the empty steppes of Inner Mongolia. Millions were watching the live broadcast a day earlier as Zhai embarked on his 15-minute space walk, witnessing the symbolic moment when he waved a Chinese flag in the weightlessness of low orbit some 340 kilometers (211 miles) above the earth. “It was a glorious mission, full of challenges with a perfect ending”, Zhai said after being pulled out of the return capsule.
    The crew was flown to space program headquarters in the north of Beijing, where they were to undergo two weeks of preventive quarantine, Xinhua said, as they are still vulnerable to terrestrial viruses.
     Amid the euphoria, the People’s Daily suggested putting a Chinese astronaut on the moon was an achievable goal.  Wang Zhaoyao, spokesman for the manned space program stated, “We believe that as long as we can make further progress in science and technology, we can achieve the dream of a manned space flight to the moon in the near future”, he told reporters.
     Before embarking on a full-scale lunar program, China is more likely to concentrate on the immediate goal of establishing an orbiting space lab, and upcoming Shenzhou launches will be focused on that objective, analysts explained. The unmanned Shenzhou VIII will lift off in early 2009, an unidentified source told the China Daily. The long-term ambition is to develop a fully-fledged space station by 2020. China then hopes to begin Lunar missions.

    So how about that! China, one of the most technologically savvy countries on Earth, at the forefront of computer and electronic innovation, is finally catching up to…1969! That’s right. The United States supposedly put men on the moon 30 years ago and China, dedicating billions of dollars, hopes to achieve it by the year 2020.  They are triumphantly celebrating an “historic 68 hour voyage”. Perhaps they sang this great anthem of travel:

  The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed,   
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,

    The Shenzhou would be lost,

    The Shenzhou would be lost.

    On a related note, Wednesday, the FBI arrested a Chinese-born physicist in Newport News, Virginia, on charges of illegally exporting space launching technical data and services to China beginning in January 2003. The physicist, Shu Quan-Sheng, 68, was born in China but was a naturalized American citizen. He has a doctorate in physics. Shu was also accused of offering bribes to Chinese government officials in exchange for a business contract, according to an FBI statement. And don’t forget all of the military technology that Clinton/Gore sent to China in exchange for illegal campaign contributions back in the 1990’s.

With all of that generous help, and the support of modern technological advances, they “hope” to replicate what NASA supposedly accomplished back when Merlin and Simon Says were cutting edge electronic devices. Give me a break!!!

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