Monday 06 October 2003 China details space plans  | Just days before China is expected to launch its first manned space flight, a Chinese defence official has spoken about China's even more ambitious space programme.
This report from Louisa Lim: |
 Listen to the story These comments are a sign that Chinese ambitions in space go far beyond a manned space flight. A top defence official, Wang Shuquan, said China will conduct tests for a future lunar landing and the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper has described the next milestone after the manned space flight as sending a satellite to orbit the moon. This lunar orbiter would circle the moon for a year, gathering information about the moon's geology, soil, environment and natural resources.
In the past Chinese officials have even talked of the possibility of establishing a base on the moon.
But what happens to these plans is likely to depend on the success of China's manned space flight, and although no dates have been officially revealed, that's believed to be just days away. The speculation in the Chinese press is that it will blast off just after the plenary meeting of the Communist party's central committee which ends on October 14th.
A successful launch will spark an outpouring of national pride, boosting the credibility of the Communist party. Failure however would be a huge loss of face.
It's not yet known who China's first astronaut, or taikonaut, as they are called here, will be. But reports say fourteen would-be astronauts have arrived at the launch pad at Jiuquan in western Gansu province and are training inside the actual spacecraft.
LOUISA LIM, BBC NEWS, BEIJING
Listen to the words manned space flight a flight outside of the earth’s atmosphere, with a human in the spacecraft lunar landing a lunar landing happens when a spacecraft is brought down safely to the surface of the moon milestone an important event in the history or development of something orbit the moon follow a path that goes around the moon establishing a base creating a place which people can live and work blast off a spacecraft blasts off when it leaves the ground to begin its journey into space spark an outpouring here - create very strong feelings within the Chinese population (if something sparks something else, it causes it to happen) loss of face embarrassment astronaut a person who travels in a spacecraft would-be astronauts would-be astronauts are people who would like to be astronauts but aren’t yet  Read more about this story | |  | | | SEARCH IN LEARNING ENGLISH | | | |
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