China counts down to manned space debut

A man walks past Long March rockets on display in Beijing yesterday. The Long March rocket is the vehicle for China's space program. PHOTO: REUTERS

State-controlled newspapers splashed color-drenched photos of the nation's futuristic desert space center across their front pages yesterday, part of a mounting propaganda blitz as China counts down the days to its landmark first manned space mission.

Pictures released by the government showed a gleaming, rocketlike metal sculpture and scarlet flags lining a road into the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the desertlands of northwestern Gansu Province.

In the background: a deep, inviting blue sky with a trace of gossamer white cloud -- a depiction of a textbook day for a country's orbital debut.

"Inside the space center!" the Beijing Youth Daily trumpeted over a photo of launch-pad scaffolding surrounding Shenzhou 5 and its Long March 2-F rocket. "Our launch center is simply the most beautiful," the Beijing Morning Post said in a headline of thick black-and-red Chinese characters.

"Deep in the vast and mostly unpopulated Gobi Desert, China's spacecraft launch base is quietly awaiting the country's first-ever manned space flight," the government's Xinhua News Agency said. It described streets lined with lamps shaped like rockets and spaceships.

Such descriptions are rare glimpses into China's space program and its trappings. The military-linked program operates under a cloak of secrecy, and repeated requests by foreign journalists to visit have been met with official silence.

The official photos and page one stories were a stark departure from recent days, when little on the impending flight was being released officially and the timid state-controlled news media -- accustomed to receiving directives from the government on coverage -- were dribbling out unconfirmed tidbits.

The government made it official on Friday night, formally announcing its first manned space mission would be launched between Wednesday and Friday "at a proper time" and orbit the Earth 14 times. That cleared the way for the unleashing of splashy coverage by the Chinese media.

Government officials have not identified the astronauts involved or said for sure how many would go up, although the inaugural mission is expected to contain one "taikonaut," a nickname based on the Chinese word for space. Most media have suggested the launch is planned for Wednesday.

Xinhua, in a dispatch from Jiuquan, pointed out how the river that runs through town, the Ruoshui, has helped turn it into "an oasis ... with unique scenery and a pleasant environment."

"Red willows and elms stand along both sides of the streets while multicolored bushes are dotted here and there," the agency said. It also cited a reservoir of 10km2 that helps beat back desert conditions at Jiuquan.

It added: "It is hard to imagine the scene of the riverside city with flourishing vegetation appearing in the extremely arid desert."

Jiuquan, near an ancient, crumbling section of the Great Wall, has been a center of space research since 1958, when Mao Zedong (毛澤東) ran China and his insular approach to governing made sure the country was far behind the Soviet Union and the US in what was then called the "space race."

Northeast of the launch site, more than 500 people linked to China's space dreams are buried -- including, the government says, Marshal Nie Rongzhen, the founder of the country's space program.

Meanwhile, a national newspaper, the Guangming Daily, ran an interview yesterday with Huang Chunping, chief of rocketry for the manned space program. He said the latest Long March rocket represents "great progress."

Huang also said that, although China has no written standards for aerospace products, the quality of the rocketry is as high as it can be.

"We've been extremely diligent about the quality of our parts. They should be as good as any Russian or American parts," Huang was quoted as saying. "Everyone's cooperated in this manned space project. We've all worked together like a family."