SPACE.com -- SARS Won't Delay First Piloted Chinese Spaceship Launch

China launches its fourth unmanned spaceship, Shenzhou IV, Monday morning, Dec. 30, 2002, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province. The capsule blasted into orbit early Monday in a test launch that soon could lead to a manned flight, the official Xinhua News Agency said.(AP Photo/Cha Chunming, XINHUA)

A chart on display during a 2000 space conference in China depicts the nation's family of Long March rockets. Chinese National Space Administration image.

A full-sized model of the Shenzhou spacecraft is seen here on display during a 2000 space conference in China. Chinese National Space Administration image.

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	SARS Won't Delay First Piloted Chinese Spaceship Launch By William Foreman Associated Press posted: 07:50 am ET 10 May 2003

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BEIJING (AP) -- The SARS outbreak won't delay China's first manned space launch, a matter of great national pride for the communist nation, state media said Saturday.

Launching the Shenzhou V spacecraft will make China the third country after Russia and the United States to send a human into space.

A front-page story in the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper didn't give a date but earlier reports have said the launch will take place in the second half of this year.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome has killed at least 230 people in China and infected more than 4,800, according to the Health Ministry.

But the report in the People's Daily said the space program has fended off SARS with special precautions.

"After SARS appeared in some places in the country, the manned space launch program used effective measures and increased prevention work to assure that Shenzhou No. 5's launch would proceed in a stable and orderly way,'' the report quoted officials as saying.

China reaffirmed its determination to put a man in space after the Columbia shuttle crash that killed all seven astronauts on Feb. 7.

Beijing is believed to have invested at least $1 billion in the program -- a large sum for a country where the average person earns about $700 a year. But the government covets success as a symbol of communist-led progress.

Founded in 1992, the military-linked space program operated until recently in almost total secrecy. More information has been released as confidence has grown following four test launches of the Shenzhou series of space capsules. The last known flight was in January, when Shenzhou IV touched down in China's northern grasslands.