From Reuters:
China aims to launch an 8-tonne lab into orbit within four years as a stepping stone to grander space feats such as a moonshot, top scientists said, celebrating their country’s first space walk while warning of hurdles ahead.
The three astronauts who flew the Shenzhou VII and achieved the brief, one-man space walk have been feted as heroes in a nation where pride in technological might runs deep.
But senior Chinese space programme engineers said astronaut Zhai Zhigang’s 15-minute walk was just one step on the way to tougher goals of sending aloft the small space lab by the end of 2011, then a larger space station and, ultimately, a possible manned trip to the moon, state media reported on Tuesday.
“With this successful Shenzhou VII mission, we’ve broken through and mastered the technology for extra-vehicular activity,” said Wang Yongzhi, a senior consulting engineer on China’s manned space programme. Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is the specialist term for space walks.
