China excited at first space flight
Oct 20, 2003
Passers-by stopped in their tracks, commuters brought their bicycles to a halt and those on lunch breaks postponed meals as people learning of China’s first manned space flight glued their eyes to television screens
Passers-by stopped in their tracks, commuters brought their bicycles to a halt and those on lunch breaks postponed meals as people learning of China’s first manned space flight glued their eyes to television screens.
Soon after the official China Central Television began a delayed broadcast of the launch from northern Inner Mongolia with astronaut Yang Liwei on board, small crowds began gathering near giant television screens outside shopping malls.
One man could not keep his eyes off a screen outside the Wonderful supermarket in central Beijing and nearly ran his cycle into a car.
“I feel very proud,†said He Wei, a Beijing man, watching the Shenzhou V blast off on the supermarket’s screen.
People watching the launch expressed pride in China and many immediately equated sending a man into space with the country being more powerful, both technologically and economically.
“If we fall behind others in space, we will be pinned down. Wars will be fought in space in the future, not on the ground. If we don’t gain space technology, other countries can see everything we do from above, but we would not be able to see what they’re doing,†said Zhang Guoguang, 42.
China launched its first astronaut aboard the Shenzhou V craft, becoming only the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space 42 years after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s epic first flight.
AFP
Soon after the official China Central Television began a delayed broadcast of the launch from northern Inner Mongolia with astronaut Yang Liwei on board, small crowds began gathering near giant television screens outside shopping malls.
One man could not keep his eyes off a screen outside the Wonderful supermarket in central Beijing and nearly ran his cycle into a car.
“I feel very proud,†said He Wei, a Beijing man, watching the Shenzhou V blast off on the supermarket’s screen.
People watching the launch expressed pride in China and many immediately equated sending a man into space with the country being more powerful, both technologically and economically.
“If we fall behind others in space, we will be pinned down. Wars will be fought in space in the future, not on the ground. If we don’t gain space technology, other countries can see everything we do from above, but we would not be able to see what they’re doing,†said Zhang Guoguang, 42.
China launched its first astronaut aboard the Shenzhou V craft, becoming only the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space 42 years after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s epic first flight.
AFP