China's Great Leap Upward

The October 2003 issue of Scientific American has a feature story on China's attempt to send astronauts into orbit. The full article can be viewed here.

At the Jiuquan Space Center near the edge of the Gobi Desert in northern China, Shenzhou 5 is being readied for launch. The spacecraft—its name means "divine vessel" in Chinese—is nearly nine meters long and weighs almost eight metric tons. Sometime this fall, Shenzhou 5 is scheduled to blast into orbit atop a Chang Zheng ("Long March") rocket. Four earlier Shenzhou spacecraft have already made orbital flights, but unlike those unmanned test vehicles, Shenzhou 5 is expected to carry a crew of up to three young Chinese military pilots. If all goes as planned, China will become the third nation to send people into space.