China: Space race? What space race?

Growing openness ... to a point
Pei dwelt extensively on the technical aspects of the lunar mission at a news conference that illustrated a growing openness within the space program.

Foreign observers were present at the satellite's launch on Oct. 24 from the Xichang site in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Pei said. He said data gathered during the yearlong mission would be shared with scientists from other nations.

China sent its first satellite into earth orbit in the 1970s, but the space program only seriously took off in the 1980s, growing apace with the country's booming economy.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to put its own astronauts into space.

But China also alarmed the international community in January when it blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile.

Pei dodged a question about the anti-satellite weapon, but gave the budget for the engineering stage of the lunar program as 1.4 billion yuan ($187 million).

"China has always adhered to the principle of peaceful use of outer space," said Pei. "All goals, including engineering goals, and scientific goals, are without military purposes."

First photo in late November
Slung into space by a Long March 3A rocket, the Chang'e 1 satellite is expected to transmit its first photo back to China in late November.

It will survey the lunar surface using stereo radar and other tools as a precursor to a planned landing on the moon's surface in 2012 and a recoverable mission by 2020.

Pei said China was being careful not to travel territory already covered by the space programs of Russia, the U.S., Japan and the European Space Agency.

He said that by launching the probe, China was playing to its science and technology strengths, while laying the groundwork for future innovations and benefiting the country's economic and social development — a reference to the Communist Party's use of the space program to drum up patriotism and loyalty.

"China's lunar program got off to a relatively late start, but we hope to ... try to do something that no one has done before," Pei said.

"We're fully confident that alongside the progress in our science and technology, our lunar and deep space exploration programs will advance rapidly from strength to strength," he said.

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