China plans to recruit female astronauts next year for future space voyages following a suggestion from China's leading women's group, state media said yesterday.
Candidates are expected to be selected from not only China but Hong Kong and Macau, a senior space official told Xinhua news agency.
Hu Shixiang, deputy chief commander of China's Manned Space Program, said even though China's pool of available astronauts were all highly-trained men, it was possible to have less-well trained women on space missions.
Physical requirements for astronauts have been lowered due to the increased maturity of China's rocket and satellite technology following successful flights involving five vehicles since 1999, Hu said.
"Healthy common people can become astronauts for space missions after specialized training thanks to China's improved space training skills and women, of course, will be included," Hu said.
"Our selection of female astronauts will not merely be a symbolic, image project," the deputy space chief said.
Last year, China sent the 431st person into space amid a great deal of media hype.
Its Shenzhou V spacecraft carrying former air force pilot Yang Liwei (楊利偉) orbited Earth 14 times and returned safely.
Since then, the All-China Women's Federation, the largest quasi-governmental women's group, has lobbied for women astronauts.
"This suggestion has been accepted by the central authorities," Gu Xiulian, president of the Federation told the Beijing Youth Daily recently.
China plans to send two astronauts into space next year, but it is unlikely the duo will include a woman, as candidates for next year's mission will come from China's current pool of 14 all male astronauts.
Hu did not give a timeline on when a woman will go into space, but said the first group of female astronauts will only need three to four years of relevant training.
Selection for female astronauts will not be confined only to the ranks of woman pilots, deputy space chief Hu said.
China's group of 14 male astronauts were selected from a pool of fighter pilots from the People's Liberation Army Air Force.
Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first woman astronaut in the world when she was rocketed into space on June 16, 1963 aboard Vostok 6.
Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly aboard space shuttle Challenger in 1983.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS