BEIJING, China (AP) -- China hopes to conduct a spacewalk in 2007 and might recruit women into its next group of astronaut candidates, a senior space program official said Monday following the safe completion of the nation's second manned mission.

The Shenzhou 6 flight ended the first stage of China's plan, which focused on development of space vehicles, said Tang Xianming, director of the China Space Engineering Office.

The next stage focuses on developing ways for astronauts to walk in space and the ability to rendezvous and dock with other spacecraft, he said.

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How cute! “We raunch roket ships, too!!!”

Welcome to ~1962!!!

CNN - China to conduct spacewalk in 2007

"President Bush's nominee to be the next chief of NASA said Tuesday that he would consider sending astronauts to repair the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, even though the last NASA chief said such a mission was too risky."

w00t!!!

NASA nominee will consider saving Hubble

"Mars scientists and engineers are elated about a dust-busting blast that has struck the Spirit rover at its Gusev crater exploration site.

Turns out that a martian whirlwind – dubbed a dust devil – likely zoomed over the robot high up in the Columbia Hills. That fleeting flyby effectively cleaned Spirit’s solar arrays, giving the robot a new lease on life.

Engineers report that the rover’s power reading quickly shot up to almost as high as when the rover landed on Mars over a year ago."

LB

Spirit Gets A Dust Devil Once-Over

] "It's not new physics nothing new has to be
] discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch,"
] he says. "If there are delays in budget or delays in
] whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic
] estimate for when we could have one up."
]
] Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of
] the space elevator project at the Institute for
] Scientific Research in Fairmont, W.Va. NASA already has
] given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and
] Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.
]
] "A lot of people at NASA are excited about the idea,"
] said Robert Casanova, director of the NASA Institute of
] Advanced Concepts in Atlanta.
]
] Edwards believes a space elevator offers a cheaper, safer
] form of space travel that eventually could be used to
] carry explorers to the planets.
]
] Edwards' elevator would climb on a cable made of
] nanotubes - tiny bundles of carbon atoms many times
] stronger than steel. The cable would be about three feet
] wide and thinner than a piece of paper, but capable of
] supporting a payload up to 13 tons.

Scientist sees space elevator in 15 years

Cool photo!

SpaceShipOne and chase jet form X Prize logo high above Mojave

] A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into
] history on June 21 on a mission to become the world's
] first commercial manned space vehicle.
]
] The pilot of the craft, still to be announced, will
] become the first person to earn astronaut wings in a
] non-government sponsored vehicle, and the first private
] civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere.
]
] That's the word on Wednesday from Scaled Composites in
] the Mojave, California desert -- designer and builder of
] SpaceShipOne. The announcement is the first time the
] group has pre-announced a high-altitude run of its
] piloted rocketship.
]
] Investor and philanthropist Paul Allen and aviation
] technologist Burt Rutan have teamed to create the
] program, which will attempt the first non-governmental
] flight to leave the Earth's atmosphere.

KICK ASS!!! -lb

Private spacecraft blast offs June 21 - Jun 2, 2004

] If you've ever wondered how big the universe is, you're
] not alone. Astronomers have long pondered this, too, and
] they've had a hard time figuring it out. Now an estimate
] has been made, and it's a whopper.
]
] The universe is at least 156 billion light-years wide.

And you thought it was a long walk to the grocery store. -LB

Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!

This program will estimate the seismic, blast wave, and thermal effects of an impact as well as the size of the crater produced by the impact. The crater size is determined using pi-scaling.

Scary, yet facinating. -LB

Earth Impact Effects Program

] The government announced Wednesday that it has issued the
] first license for a manned suborbital rocket, a step
] toward opening space flight to private individuals for
] the first time.
]
] The Federal Aviation Administration gave a one-year
] license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., headed by
] Burt Rutan. He is best known for designing the Voyager
] airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight
] around the world in 1986.
]
] "This is a big step," FAA spokesman Henry Price said.
]
] The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane,
] dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet
] designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch.
] SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings
] and twin vertical tails. It reached 68,000 feet in a
] trial flight.

Awesome! -LB

Government licenses first privately built, manned rocket

] California -- NASA has made aeronautics history by
] launching an experimental jet that reached a record
] velocity of just over seven times the speed of sound.
]
] Fifty-seven years after test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the
] sound barrier, NASA on Saturday launched the unpiloted
] research jet, in a development some observers say could
] change the future of space travel.
]
] It is the first time a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or
] scramjet, which uses air for fuel, had traveled so fast,
] flight engineer Lawrence Huebner told reporters.
]
] Scientists hope such jets will make space travel more
] affordable and spur commercial ventures.

WOOOOOSH! -LB

NASA jet breaks speed record