- BEIJING - A wisp of wind
blows red earth into the air and gusts over scorching black rock - the
only sign of movement on a desert plain east of Jiuquan.
-
- Dry, lifeless and red, the area
around this remote settlement, from where the first Chinese astronaut will
be launched into space - possibly later this year - looks like a Martian
landscape.
-
- It provides inspiration for
an ambitious space program to conquer first the moon and then Mars. Despite
the cost, estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, and immense technical
difficulties, China boasts that it will beat the United States with a manned
mission to Mars.
-
- Unauthorized personnel are not permitted
to enter the Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center, on the edge of the Gobi
Desert, but from the perimeter one can see the massive steel tower that
supports the country's "Long March" rockets. A cluster of buildings
stretches away from the launch pad, linked by a rail line.
-
- Opposite the pad stand two giant towers,
at least 20 stories high, where the rockets are assembled. It is inside
these that the Shenzhou, or "Divine Vessel," space capsule is
attached before being shunted down the rail to the launch pad.
-
- The official China Daily newspaper
announced last week that Beijing would launch one more unmanned space flight
this year. Before the end of the year, China plans to be the third nation
to put an astronaut in space with its own rockets.
-
- Preparations for a manned flight have
been intensified as scientists rush to complete the program ahead of a
2005 deadline for placing astronauts on an orbiting space station. The
calendar for getting to Mars is slightly vaguer, although the year 2010
is frequently mentioned as a target date.
-
- "If the test flight of
the fourth Shenzhou spacecraft is successful, the manned space mission
would be just around the corner," China Daily said.
-
- Western scientists are skeptical
that a country that has not yet put a man into orbit is serious about tackling
Mars.
-
- The triumph of man over nature, however,
brought Jiuquan into existence, and if China can build up such an inhospitable
part of the Earth, scientists reason, it can easily conquer space.
-
- The model for a Chinese base
on Mars, laid out in an exhibition traveling the country, is reminiscent
of the colonization of Jiuquan by Mao Tse-tung's scientists in the 1960s.
-
- The beehive models of laboratories
and housing on Mars differ from the air-conditioned concrete towers at
Jiuquan only in that gravity as well as temperature must be controlled
and oxygen imported or manufactured.
-
- Otherwise, the principles of colonization
appear remarkably similar. The dry riverbeds and black-green rock outcrops
at Jiuquan are interspersed with inkblot patches of cultivated land won
back from the desert to feed a transplanted population of scientists.
-
- On the model Mars base, a row of oil
derricks overlooks a long series of domes ready for human habitation.
-
- Before it gets to Mars, China must
put an astronaut into space. Soviet space capsules from the 1960s have
been adapted to the point where this is "technically feasible,"
and officials have boasted that, by 2040, a Chinese base on Mars will be
a reality. Beijing has unleashed a barrage of propaganda to proclaim its
achievements in space exploration.
-
- "Our country's space science
activities have developed very fast in recent years," says a retired
Communist Party official, Wu Xunjia, 68. "I think the idea that Chinese
could put humans into space within one or two years gives us all great
hope."
-
- Student interest in space has suddenly
exploded, said Chen Xiao, a third-year undergraduate student at Beijing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Mr. Chen's career horizons
have been lifted in recent weeks far beyond earthly boundaries.
-
- "Twenty years ago, people
of my parents' generation never thought they would be using computers today,"
he said. "In my lifetime, Chinese science is speeding up, and I'm
sure I will land on Mars before 2040."
-
- The mandarins in charge of the space program
are drawing a nationalist dividend from a project highly dependent on foreign
technology. Despite the hype, however, much of the Chinese space program
remains shrouded in secrecy. It is impossible to get access to the Jiuquan
facility, or even to the viewing platform on the Great Wall of China, from
where senior leaders watch rockets blast off.
-
- Almost 2,000 miles east of Jiuquan, the
astronaut training center north of Beijing is equally well-guarded. Fourteen
astronauts are in training at the facility.
-
- Two of these, Li Qinlong and Wu Zi, have
spent a year working in Moscow and are the favorites to go into orbit when
the mission is launched. The other space cadets are candidates for later
missions.
-
- Official rhetoric contends that the
chosen candidates are made of the right stuff.
-
- "China has begun selecting
astronauts, chosen from outstanding air force pilots who will undergo strict
basic training and pass specialized tests before undertaking a manned space
mission," said the head of the space program, Su Shuangning.
-
- "Appropriate and medium
in stature, quick in movement and unafraid of hardship, Chinese astronauts
are obviously superior."
|
