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Tokyo - February 1, 2000 - According to several press reports in Asia there is a possibility China will attempt to usher in the Year of the Dragon with a manned launch sometime over the Chinese New Year period that begins February 5. In the Jan. 8 issue of Wen Wei Po, one of the two pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong, Chinese taikonauts are rumoured to go into space in February. In the Jan. 27 issue of Ta Kung Pao, the other pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, a recent interview from the [People's] Liberation Army Newspaper, with Prof. Liang Sili, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and member of the International Astronautics Federation said, "that some time in the next century, Chinese taikonauts would travel in space in the Shenzhou series of spacecraft." Liang confirmed that China would continue testing and launching unmanned missions of the manned-rated space capsules in the near future, and China would launch its first manned flight early in the 21st century. In another report in a recent edition of Japanese economic daily "The Nikkei" a former Russian cosmonaut suggested China might launch its taikonauts into space for the first time in February. If the flight materializes, the launch of a manned mission comes much earlier than the timeline of 2005 that many people predict. In a dispatch from Moscow, the Nikkei quoted former Russian cosmonaut Anatoli Berezovoi, who told a Russian news agency in an interview on the 6th of January, that China wished to become the third country after Russia and U.S. to launch manned space missions. Berezovoi went aboard the Salyut 7 space station in 1982, during the era of the Soviet Union. At the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Aerospace Berezovoi and another former cosmonaut, thought to be Anatoli Filipchenko, arrived in Beijing on Jan. 6 to exchange ideas with Chinese aerospace experts and provide technical guidance. The Nikkei wrote that Russia had been providing comprehensive human skills and technical assistance to China's space program. Taken with the first article, if the interpretation of "21st century" starts with this year a February launch of a manned mission is not completely far-fetched and would be the ultimate prize for a Stirring Dragon.
A POWERFUL DRAGON
China At SpaceDaily
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Sydney - December 1, 1999 - Technically, the first flight of China�s Shenzhou crew-carrying spacecraft ended 21 hours after liftoff, when its descent module parachuted to a landing in Inner Mongolia. In more general terms, the mission is still not complete.