Ceilidh

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

BEIJING, Oct 10 (Reuters) - China will launch its first manned spaceship next week, aiming to become the third country after the Soviet Union and the United States to put a man in orbit.

The official Xinhua news agency said on Friday the Shenzhou V would be launched between October 15 and 17 at an "appropriate time" from a launch pad in the Gobi desert in northwestern China and orbit the Earth 14 times.

It was the first official confirmation of the launch window on a mission China has kept under tight wraps.

"The Shenzhou V spacecraft will carry out the first manned space mission and will lift off from the China Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre," Xinhua quoted an official in charge of the country's space programme as saying.

"Now all preparatory work for the launch is progressing smoothly."

Sources at two major state-run television stations and a tour operator told Reuters early this week the launch had been provisionally set for the morning of October 15, barring bad weather.

And Hong Kong's Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper said the craft would fly for 21 hours, or 90 minutes per orbit, before floating back down to Earth the next morning.

It did not say how many astronauts would be taking part in the maiden voyage, but that a team had been trained for the mission.

Qi Faren, chief designer of the vessel, was quoted by the China Daily as saying he and his colleagues were confident about the mission despite the fact China had so far conducted only four unmanned test flights due to "limited funds."

RIGHT STUFF

China has kept a veil of secrecy on details of the launch, with scant details leaking in a few state newspapers and in Hong Kong.

State media have said that up to three "taikonauts" could be aboard the craft, although the Shanghai-based Liberation Daily said on Thursday a single astronaut would be chosen from 14 experienced fighter pilots.

A successful manned flight, on the heels of Beijing winning a bid to host the 2008 Olympics, could fuel nationalism and offer a boost to the Communist Party as China seeks a place on the world stage alongside the traditional great powers.

Any failure would be a loss of face and would raise questions about the necessity of a space programme in a country where 140 million people live on less than $1 a day.

The public buildup for the space launch began on Friday, with state media releasing a flood of new though still sketchy details, preparing the country for the big day.

An army song and dance troupe was filming a music video to celebrate the launch called "Flying," the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily said.

It showed a black-and-white photo of a girl tightly clad in a spacesuit trimmed with shiny vinyl, the Chinese flag sewn on her chest, with fake moonrock in the backdrop.

"'Flying' will express through song the romantic emotions and spirit of exploration of the Chinese people in their 1,000-year pursuit of a dream," the paper said.

State television giant CCTV is poised to begin a 20-part documentary on the history of the space programme on its science and technology channel, the TV programme's chief editor said.

The Beijing tabloid Star said the show would deal with the failure of two test rocket launches in 1990 and 1992, which killed an unknown number of people.