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 The BBC's Adam Brookes"The launch comes amid a spate of national celebrations"  real 28k The BBC's Pallab Ghosh"It'll be good for national pride"  real 28k |
China's Soviet space heritage
 A hand-painted poster trumpets the space voyage |
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
The Chinese media has swelled with national pride following the first launch of the country's spaceship, despite the lack of a crew on board.
The China Daily hailed the launch and touchdown of the unmanned "Shenzhou" with a front page photo captioned "Landmark launch shakes the world".
China's success comes 42 years after the former Soviet Union became the first nation to go into space. After the former Soviet Union and the United States, China is only the third nation to launch a vehicle capable of carrying a man into orbit.
Soviet-style
But a close look at China's technology reveals how much it owes to the former Soviet Union's spacecraft design and, possibly, American electronic technology.
 The returned capsule is inspected |
In May, a US congressional report by Representative Christopher Cox, a California Republican, alleged Chinese agents stole US space, missile and nuclear secrets.
China, which has vehemently denied the Cox report, says both the rocket and the spacecraft used in the launch were home-grown.
But that is clearly not the case.
Larger Soyuz
The Shenzhou spacecraft is obviously a larger derivative of the Russian Soyuz design, probably outfitted with Chinese avionics.
The design of the capsule, which could hold up to three Chinese astronauts, shows that it is intended to be docked with another spacecraft in orbit.
It could be the first piece of a Chinese manned space station or, less probably, docked to the International Space Station now being built by an international collaboration, led by the US and Russia.
 Lift-off for the 'divine ship' |
Jiang has identified himself personally with the project by naming the craft "Shenzhou", or "Divine Ship". That name, in Jiang's calligraphy, appeared on the front pages of major Chinese newspapers on Monday.
Several unmanned test flights of Shenzhou are expected to take place but a manned flight is probably two years away.
'Hugely influential'
On Monday, China's state press championed the technological breakthrough of the first test launch but revealed little more.
 First we had the atom bomb, then satellites, now this. Our country is great  |
| Yang Dengqing, retired Chinese engineer |
"But for the future of mankind and our country's politics, military, economy and science and technology it will be hugely influential," it added.
People interviewed on Beijing's streets on Monday all welcomed the weekend flight of the Shenzhou capsule. All insisted China could afford a human-flight space program even though tens of millions of Chinese live in poverty.
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See also: | |
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 | 22 Nov 99 | Sci/Tech |
| China joins space club |
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| 20 Oct 99 | Sci/Tech |
| Intriguing details of Chinese space plans |
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| 10 Jun 99 | Sci/Tech |
| China's secret manned spacecraft revealed |
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| 26 Feb 99 | Sci/Tech |
| Chinese manned spaceflight probable |
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| 13 May 99 | Sci/Tech |
| China to test 'space shuttle' in October |
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