Astronauts prepare for spacewalk
13 October 2006
Chinese astronauts are training for spacewalks, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced. CNSA head Sun Laiyan said the country's next manned space journey (the first took place in 2003, and was followed by another last year) could take place in 2007 or 2008 and is likely to involve "extra-vehicular operations", the Financial Times reported. However, China's leading space scientists believe it will be 15-20 years before they can send a person to the moon. Sun said that China "still has a long way to go", estimating that NASA's US$17 billion budget is 10 times that of the Chinese space program. Next year the country plans to launch a lunar satellite to take pictures of the moon from 200 kilometers away and analyze atmospheric conditions.