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China plans manned space mission in 2005
(CNN) -- China is boosting its astronaut training program and will send several people into space in three years, according to official state media. The flight will serve as a prelude to a space station assembly project and a manned mission to the moon, reported the People's Daily, citing space program documents. The newspaper offered rare details about the normally secretive space organization, many about its budding astronaut training program near the capital. "The aerospace city located in Beijing's suburban area is said to be the third large[st] city for spaceflight training [in] the world," read the daily's online English edition. Two Chinese space aspirants began training in Moscow in 1996. In the meantime, China constructed its own astronaut instruction center and recently began mustering more cadets, the paper said. The new recruits are air force pilots with more than 1,000 flying hours. They train for ten hours each day, doing everything from simulating space travel to studying medicine and rocket science. In May, China completed its third unmanned Shenzhou space mission. The Shenzhou 3 capsule, complete with a crew of mannequins, orbited Earth more than 100 times and landed in Mongolia, state media said. China, which launched its first satellite in 1970, hopes to become the third nation to send humans in space, following the United States and Russia, formerly part of the Soviet Union.
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