As China
prepares for its second manned spaceflight, officials with the country's space
agency say it will be a while before female Chinese astronauts reach orbit.
According
to Qi Faren, chief designer for China's manned spacecraft, there are not yet
any female astronauts or pilots qualified to ride aboard a space-bound Shenzhou
spacecraft, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.
Chinese
astronaut candidates typically amass about 700 hours flying fighter planes to
qualify for astronaut status, Xinhua stated.
"Although
China has many women aviators now, none of them meet the minimum
requirement," Qi told Xinhua.
China was
the third nation, after Russia and the U.S., to build a manned spacecraft and
launch it into Earth orbit.
It took
Russia two years since launching the first human in space - cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961 - to loft the first woman, cosmonaut
Valentina Tereshkova, who flew aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. In June of 1983,
the first U.S. female astronaut, Sally Ride, launched spaceward aboard the
space shuttle Challenger 22 years after NASA launched its first human, Alan
Shepard, on a sub-orbital flight inside the Freedom 7 spacecraft in May 1961.
China's
first manned spaceflight, Shenzhou 5, launched and landed safely in October
2003 with astronaut Yang Liwei at the helm during a 21-hour mission that
circled the Earth 14 times. That flight will be followed by Shenzhou-6, a
five-day mission manned by two astronauts, which is expected to launch this
fall, Qi said, adding that flight's spacecraft has already been assembled for
astronaut training.
advertisement
