Reports from inside and outside China suggest that this October -- timed to salute the anniversary of the Communist revolution -- a piloted Shenzhou spaceship may roar out of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert.

China's ability to launch astronauts -- often tagged "Taikonauts" -- into orbit would make that country the third nation capable of independently placing humans into space. For now, only Russia and the United States can make the claim.

The recent flight of an unpiloted Shenzhou 4 craft has seemingly cleared the way for a crew to ride the spaceship into orbit, perhaps later this year. Shenzhou's ascent and reentry module is large enough to hold a crew of three.

"It is a good start to our dream to send Chinese astronauts into the outer space, but there is still a long way to go, compared with some other countries in this area,'' said a cautious Shi Jinmiao, deputy commander-in-chief and deputy chief designer of the Shenzhou 4 spacecraft told China's People's Daily.

"The successful launching and return of Shenzhou 4, which carried a simulated person into the space has laid a solid base for our future missions, but it is not a guarantee,'' Shi said.

Qin Wenbo, deputy commander-in-chief of Shenzhou 4, was also quoted by People's Daily regarding the readiness of Chinese space officials to place humans into orbit. "Space flight is scientific, not gambling. We have to use our very best skills to guarantee these astronauts will return to Earth safely,'' Qin said.

How will NASA embrace China becoming a newcomer in the human spaceflight business? Offering a space shuttle seat or advocating an open airlock policy for Chinese space flyers on the International Space Station might be considered.

First of all, a judgment by NASA to work with China is beyond the agency's pay grade, said John Logsdon, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "Whether to cooperate in space with China is not NASA's decision to make," he said.

"High-technology relationships with the People's Republic is very much a White House issue. There is no way that NASA can agree to even talk to China about cooperation in human spaceflight without a White House go-ahead. That signal will only come if the Bush Administration decides that such cooperation fits within the broader pattern of U.S.-Chinese political and security relationships," Logsdon said.

Paul Dickson, author of the book, Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, finds parallels in the Soviet satellite surprise of October 1957 and a possible China human space trek 46 years later, in October 2003.

"I really don't think America is taking this seriously," Dickson said from his office in Garrett Park, Maryland.

"What if there is a unilateral plan for a Chinese moon base or manned mission to Mars in the cards? What if they partner up with Russians? Will all of this pull the U.S. manned spaceflight program out of low Earth orbit for the first time since 1972? One can only hopeotherwise Americans may wake up some morning in the not so distant future to hear that the Chinese have planted their flag on the lunar surface next to the one planted there by Neil Armstrong," Dickson said.

Any blossoming of cooperation between America and China may parallel the evolution of partnership between NASA and the former Soviet Union. Despite blustery Cold War rhetoric from both countries, space teamwork has led to an array of joint ventures - with the International Space Station as a prime example.

Logsdon said that U.S.-Soviet cooperation was nurtured at a low level of visibility for years. That lead to the Apollo-Soyuz project linkup in Earth orbit in 1975.

"After that success, further cooperation fell victim to the tense Cold War relationships of the late 1970s and 1980s."

With the collapse of communist control, Logsdon added, then intimate relationships in human spaceflight were made possible. Even then, working with Russia was driven in large measure by political considerations.

Logsdon said that the Clinton Administration's desire was to both prevent the immigration of former Soviet technical personnel to rogue nations, as well as signal its support for then Russian President, Boris Yeltsin.

"So any parallel [in NASA working with China] has to be placed in a rather broad and lengthy historical context," Logsdon said.

As China progresses towards undertaking human space programs, this is likely to have a major impact on its space relations with the European Space Agency, as well as the Russian space program.

That's the personal view of Dean Cheng, Senior Asia Analyst at the CNA Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia.

China has expended more resources on developing a human spaceflight program than the Europeans, Cheng stated. "They are likely to have deeper pockets than the Russians," he said.

Contrasting the purchasing power parity of China and Russia, Cheng said that the Russian economy in 2002 was some $1.13 trillion. The Chinese economy that same year was some $5.56 trillion. Similarly, the Chinese governmental budget was in the range of $161 billion compared to Russia's $45 billion, he said, citing figures produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

"Thus, the Chinese appear, for the foreseeable future, likely to be able to invest far more in space missions in general -- both manned and unmanned -- compared with the Russians," Cheng said.

Industrial complex

Many of the potential technological pitfalls confronting Sino-European cooperation are less likely to emerge in Sino-Russian cooperation, Cheng said.

"The Chinese Shenzhou appears to be based upon Russian Soyuz technology, although most reports indicate that the Chinese have made significant modifications to the Russian original. Moreover, Russian and Chinese technological approaches, especially for such large projects, likely remain related," he said.

The Chinese military-industrial complex was originally developed from the Soviet model, Cheng said. While Chinese economic reforms vitiated the state-owned enterprises in much of the economy, the "heavy" industries -- including aerospace -- remain far more centrally directed, the analyst added.

Cheng said it would be difficult to argue that U.S.-Chinese relations today are not on a par to U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War. Nevertheless, the level of cooperation needed to carry out joint space endeavors raises political questions.

"The Apollo-Soyuz mission required extensive technical interaction between the two sides. Even then, questions were raised as to whether the United States gained or released more information in its interactions with the Soviet space program," Cheng said.

In light of recent U.S. State Department charges against two U.S. aerospace firms, Hughes and Boeing, that they illegally shared sensitive technology with China, it's clear that political hurdles remain in fostering a U.S.-Chinese space program.

"Given the reluctance of many in the U.S. military and political community to revive military-to-military contacts, for fear of allowing the Chinese too many insights into U.S. military capabilities, a joint space mission would almost certainly engender significant concerns about what information was being released to the Chinese," Cheng said.

Cheng's advice is for the United States to tread very carefully.

"An American willingness to meet the Chinese in space would probably serve as a signal of recognition of China's accomplishmentsa gesture that might well improve U.S.-Chinese relations, at least for a time," Cheng said.

Conversely, Cheng concluded that an American refusal to undertake such a mission -- assuming that the Chinese proposed the mission -- would likely have an adverse effect. That would be tantamount to a space slap in the face, he said.

Robert Park, a physicist and science policy watchdog at the University of Maryland in College Park, casts a skeptical eye on China's burgeoning human spaceflight program.

"Yes, the space race is back...and just in time," he noted recently in his on-line, "What's New" science column under the auspices of the American Physical Society.

"The brilliance of America's space strategy now seems clear: Lure China into a space race," Park noted.

"To compete in human space flight, China will have to shift energy and resources from its military adventures to Taikonauts, which will have little or no military or economic payoff. At least we're now playing on a level field. Toss in plans (for) the space shuttle and we could cripple China without firing a shot," Park concluded.