HONG
KONG - As it grows in economic strength, China has
its gaze firmly fixed on the heavens, devoting
more and more energy and resources to developing
its space program.
In the next five years,
China aims to enable its astronauts to engage in
extra-vehicular operations and conduct experiments
on spacecraft rendezvous and docking, and to carry
out research on short-term manned and long-term
autonomously orbiting space
laboratories.
China will launch its first lunar-probe
satellite, Chang'e I, for scientific research and
resource exploration on the moon, and to
make breakthroughs in
developing basic technologies for sending
astronauts to the moon.
These goals are
explained in a white paper on the development of
China's space program for the period of 2006-10,
released in Beijing by the State Council's
Information Office on Thursday.
"China's
Space Activities in 2006", China's second white
paper on its space program since 2000, says the
country plans to develop pollution-free,
high-performance, low-cost and powerful-thrust
carrier rockets over the next five years, and aims
to increase the carrying capacity of near-Earth
orbiters to 25 tons, and that of geostationary
orbiters to 14 tons.
And in future, China
may offer space trips for tourists, although no
timetable has been set, said Sun Laiyan, head of
China National Space Administration.
"I
know several tourists have traveled in space at
the cost of US$20 million for a trip. Space
tourism thus has great potential to become a huge
industry, creating new stimuli to economic growth
and bringing new changes to people's lives," Sun
said.
However, he stressed that safety is
of the utmost importance in space tourism, adding:
"Our manned space navigation is still at the
experimental stage."
Sun also defended the
cost of China's space program, saying the country
spends far less than the United States. He said:
"China is a developing country ... as I know, the
United States' budget for civil space activities
is about $17 billion, while ours is less than
one-tenth of that."
China will spend just
a little more than 1 billion yuan ($127 million)
for the first stage of its lunar exploration plan,
he said.
The white paper says China will
implement a high-resolution Earth-observation
system and develop and launch new
sun-synchronous-orbit and geostationary-orbit
meteorological satellites, oceanic satellites,
Earth-resources satellites, and small satellites
for environmental protection and disaster
monitoring and forecasting.
The white
paper was released to mark the 50th anniversary of
China's space program.
"For half a
century, China has worked independently in this
field. It has made eye-catching achievements, and
ranks among the world's most advanced countries in
some important fields of space technology," the
white paper says.
Long March rockets,
which were independently developed by China, have
made 24 consecutive successful flights over the
past five years, and their major technological
functions and reliability have been notably
upgraded, says the white paper.
On October
15 and 16, 2003, China launched and retrieved
Shenzhou V, its first manned spacecraft. Having
mastered the basic technologies for manned
spacecraft, China became the third country in the
world to develop manned space flight
independently.
From October 12-17, 2005,
the Shenzhou VI manned spacecraft completed a
five-day flight with two astronauts on board. This
was the first time Chinese astronauts had engaged
in experiments in space.
"With the success
of our manned space missions, China becomes only
the third country in the world to send a man into
space on [its] own. This is a source of pride for
the Chinese nation," Sun said.
The
government will increase its involvement in the
space industry and at the same time encourage the
establishment of a diverse, multi-channel
space-industry funding system so as to guarantee
its development, the white paper says.
John Ng is a freelance
journalist based in Hong Kong.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
