Chinese Taikonauts Arrive at Launch Facility

CylonSlave writes "It seems the recent rumors about China's first manned flight occuring in the next couple of weeks may be for real. Spacedaily.com reports (courtesy of AFP) 14 Chinese trained taikonauts have arrived at the launch facility in Gansu province in Northwest China. Earlier space.com and one of the Chinese state's news organs, the People's Daily, reported on the possibility of a manned flight next month. Note that this Wednesday, October 1, is China's National Day. This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule. Personally, I hope the competition will jolt the US space program back into more visionary ideas such as the manned Mars mission. Two sites about China's space program can be seen here & here."

Comments

On board the spacecraft...

[stienman]

This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule.

Among other instruments onboard, they will be deploying the world's first open relay SMTP satellite, usable with a directv or primestar dish and a common 802.11a/b/g bridge.

Later 2005:
In other news, a Chinese satellite exploded over asia yeasterday. Authorites are investigating, but an unnamed internal source indicated that the "... server couldn't handle the 3 billion emails per second ..." that apparently up until yesterday were flowing through the relay.

Next day:
Microsoft is claiming victory as hundreds of US Spammers declare bankruptcy.

-Adam

Re:Taikonauts?

[Yokaze]

According to one source, the Chinese aren't to blame for this, but the imperialistic press.