doctor_slump 2008-9-29 09:56 PM
Chinese hail returning space heroes
Three Chinese astronauts were given a rapturous welcome when they returned to Beijing after carrying out the country's first spacewalk.
The men, sometimes called "taikonauts" after the Chinese word for space, were greeted by family members and high ranking officers of China's military.
Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng then visited China's Space Control Centre as crowds cheered and waved Chinese flags.
A senior space official said the mission was China's most ambitious yet, taking the country one step closer in its plan to build a space station and then to land a man on the moon.
Wang Zhaoyao, deputy director of manned space flight, said the programme is looking to launch a new orbiting vehicle and set up a simple space lab by 2011.
There are also hopes of sending unmanned and manned space vehicles to perform docking activities with the target vehicle.
By 2020, China wants to launch a manned mission to experiment with technologies that will enable astronauts to take care of spacecraft for longer periods of time, Wang told reporters at a briefing in Beijing after a parachute brought the astronauts' capsule back to ground.
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