] China has vowed to push ahead with plans to launch its
] own first manned space mission this year despite the
] Columbia tragedy, state press reported on Monday .
]
] "China will launch its first manned space shuttle this
] year," said Tu Shou'e, an astronautics academic at the
] Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the People's
] Daily.
]
] "The key work now is to learn lessons from the accident
] to make our programme better and to make the dream of the
] Chinese people of reaching into space come true."

Go China! The more countries and corps putting their efforts into the exploration and colonization of space, the better. Now more then any other time, we should be keenly aware of how easy it is for major setbacks to occur in humanity's endevour to push this frontier.

I hope all the players in the space game truly do believe that this is a "humanity" thing, and not a "country" thing. If we do not enbrace that belief, we will be doing ourselves a great disservice.

China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com