China will launch its own permanent manned space station within 15 years, but does not plan to send a man to the moon, the chief designer of the country's space program was cited as saying yesterday.
Wang Yongzhi (王永志) also revealed that China's manned space program has guzzled 18 billion yuan (US$2.18 billion) over the past 11 years.
Under the program, China will construct a permanent manned space station, expected to take 15 years, the Beijing News reported him as telling some 100 high school students from Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau.
But due to financial reasons, China's lunar probe will not send an astronaut to the moon, Wang said.
This is in contrast to previous statements from Chinese officials suggesting the country was hoping to land an astronaut on the moon at some point within the coming decades.
No further details were provided but China gained invaluable expertise and experience from the country's first manned space flight, when astronaut Yang Liwei (
It put China alongside the US and the former Soviet Union as the only countries in the world to send a man into orbit.
Currently, the only manned space station is the International Space Station (ISS), a 16-nation project that includes Canada, European Space Agency, Japan, Russia and the US, but not China.
As well as its space station ambitions, China has also detailed plans to launch a lunar satellite in 2006 and land an unmanned craft on the moon in 2010, while another unmanned craft will collect lunar dust in 2020.
Its next manned space mission, the Shenzhou VI, will be launched next year on a flight to be piloted by two astronauts, state media said earlier this month. The two astronauts will also leave the space capsule and descend into the orbital module where they will conduct experiments, Shen Faren (
China's desire to compete in space with other world powers has become a mammoth undertaking.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese