The launch of the Shenzhou 5 rocket will make China the third country after Russia and the US to send a man into space.
Avi Blizovsky
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The outbreak of the SARS epidemic will not delay the first Chinese manned launch, which is an event of national pride for the communist country. This is what the Chinese media said on Saturday.
The launch of the Shenzhou 5 rocket will make China the third country after Russia and the US to send a man into space.
The cover story in the Chinese Communist Party daily "People's Daily" did not give a date, but previous reports indicate that the launch will take place in the second half of 2003.
Sars has so far killed 230 people in China and the number of infected according to the Chinese Ministry of Health reaches 4,800. However, the report in the People's Daily stated that the space program is taking steps to prevent its people from being infected.
"After SARS appeared in several places in the country, the manned space program used several effective measures to increase prevention and to ensure that the launch of Shenzhou 5 was carried out in a stable and orderly way." wrote in the report.
China reiterated its determination to put a man in space about a week after the Columbia disaster.
Experts estimate that China has invested at least one billion dollars in the project - a large sum for a country where the average salary is 700 dollars per year. However, the government is careful to say that the achievement will be a symbol of the progress that communism brings with it.
The Chinese space program, founded in 1992, is closely related to the military. It operated until recently under a heavy shroud of secrecy. Little by little, the information about her became known after the Chinese self-confidence increased after four successful test flights of Shenzhou unmanned spacecraft. The last known flight was in January 2003, when the Shenzhou 4 spacecraft landed in the grasslands of northern China.
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