7/1/2023 0 Comments Space station inside![]() ![]() They've sent various crafts to the moon, brought back moon rocks. They've gone from, basically, one crewed mission every two or three years to now they're doing one every six months to change crew at the space station. RUWITCH: Well, look, I mean, their first manned space mission was in 2003, right? Twenty years later, they now have an operational space station. You got to remember, up until today, all of China's astronauts came from the military.įADEL: Now, you mentioned this program is ambitious. And these are the - you know, these are the scientists. ![]() It needs to be operated and understood and managed by people who know what they're doing. QUENTIN PARKER: If you got, you know, an orbital space station like the Chinese now have, which is basically a very large science laboratory, then the kind of equipment and payloads they have up there are very sophisticated technological and scientific equipment, sometimes quite delicate. He says it's important because it sort of opens a new chapter for China's ambitious space program. I called Quentin Parker, who's a space scientist at the University of Hong Kong, to ask how significant this is. He's on this mission as a payload specialist, so he's not navigating or flying, but he's basically going to be conducting science experiments. And then he went on to do postdoc work in Canada. He actually got his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. He teaches at Beihang University in Beijing, which is China's premier aeronautics and astronautics university. It's a bespectacled professor named Gui Haichao, who's 36 years old. So this civilian - who is he, and why is it so important that he's going up to space? The country's space program is run by the military, so, for them, this is another milestone.įADEL: To discuss more, we have NPR's John Ruwitch with us from Shanghai. Among the three is the first civilian to be sent into orbit by China. They're headed to China's new space station to relieve a crew that's been there for six months. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).Ī rocket blasted into orbit with three astronauts on board. ![]()
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