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China Sends First Taikonaut To Space

Posted by timothy on from the gotta-check-out-the-great-wall-legend dept.

tuxlove writes "Space.com reports that China has just successfully launched its first manned space mission. "Blasting off from a remote space base in the Gobi Desert atop a Long March 2F rocket, a single Chinese astronaut named Yang Liwei is on his way to circle the planet every 90 minutes aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. As a result, China has become only the third nation on Earth capable of independently launching its citizens into orbit. " Perhaps this will kick the US space program back into gear?" aerojad points to this Reuters report, about which he says "The article is short on details, aside from 'Xinhua said the craft carried astronaut Yang Liwei, 38. The launch on Wednesday, 42 years after the Soviet Union put the first man into space, marked a milestone for China's secretive space programme, which analysts say has its sights set on a manned mission to the moon.' The mission is due to end in 21 hours." zxm adds a link to China Daily's coverage, and puiwah to a story on MSNBC.

2 of 915 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I misread the headline as... by fenix+down · · Score: 1, Troll

    Great. I guess we can expect 500 comments full of a combination of racism and idiocy.

    A brief summary: Takeout joke blah blah blah stupid MSG joke blah blah blah somebody confusing Korea and China and making a dog-eating joke blah blah blah something so goddamn offensive I can't even think of it, but it'll happen blah blah blah communism is bad blah blah blah communists don't care if they die blah blah blah militarizing space blah blah blah this something about libertarians or Ayn Rand blah blah blah does it run Linux blah blah blah Bush is gonna declare war on China blah blah blah one or two people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about but are so hopelessly drowned out by racist non-humor that I'll never read them.

    Nice work, Slashdot!

  2. Inferiority complex? by gklinger · · Score: 1, Troll
    I hope this isn't taken out of context because I mean no insult nor do I mean to belittle what China has done but am I only the only one that thinks China has a massive inferiority complex?

    They seem so desperate to prove to the rest of the world that they're not backwards or technologically inept or whatever it is. They're obsessed with getting into space, building skyscrapers that are taller than those in other countries and they're sinking billions into modernizing Beijing to impress the world during the Olympcs. If all this results in a higher quality of life for the Chinese people, I'm all for it. Unfortunately, I don't think it will.