Wed, Sep 17, 2008
Flight To Include Country's First Spacewalk
China has chosen three of its taikonauts -- all 42 years-old,
all former fighter pilots in the People's Liberation Army, and all
members in good standing of the Communist Party -- to man the
nation's next space mission, set for launch on September 25.
Agence-France Presse reports a state-run website announced
Tuesday one of the men will become the first Chinese
spacewalker.
Colonel Zhai Zhigang will conduct a 40-minute spacewalk during
the 68-hour mission, and will release a small satellite which can
broadcast video of his spacewalk back to earth.
He'll wear a $15 million pressurized spacesuit patterned after a
Russian design, with two lifelines supplying oxygen and
communications from the Shenzhou VII spacecraft.
The craft will launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center
in the desert of northwest China's Gansu province the evening of
September 25. Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng will return to
land in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia September 28.
China's government is thought to have timed the first spacewalk
to closely follow its successful staging of the Olympic games,
providing a showcase for technological progress.
While its neighbors worry about the military implications of
China's space ambitions, Chinese President Hu Jintao stressed last
year, "The development of our nation's outer space exploration is
completely for peaceful purposes."
And we sincerely believe that... the same way we believe all
those female gymnasts were 16 years-old...
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