China sees big hurdles for future space goals

BEIJING (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 program engineers said astronaut Zhi 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 program. Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is the specialist term for space walks.

The rising space power's next goal was sending aloft the small space lab that could be manned for short periods and used to master complex docking and other skills needed for long-term tasks, Wang said in an interview published on the manned space program's official news website (www.cmse.gov.cn).

Those goals could include the moon, Wang said.

"The moon is the space entity closest to the Earth, the starting point and base for pioneering the exploration of deep space, and so a manned landing on the moon should be the future strategic objective of our country's manned space travel."

MOON LANDING?

Specialists were assessing the feasibility of a manned moon journey and would seek central leadership approval for it "when conditions are ripe," Wang said.

"I'm sure that in the not-too-distant future, a Chinese person will land on the moon," he added.

The success of Shenzhou VII, which landed on China's northern steppes after 68 hours in space, has burnished the country's patriotic glow after a year dominated by the Beijing Olympics and the outpouring of national grief after a catastrophic earthquake.

China now stands alongside Russia and the United States as the only countries able to send people into space.

But Chinese experts stressed that their country's next big goals in space face big technological hurdles.

Two "tougher and more complicated" skills still to be mastered are docking craft in space and learning how to keep astronauts alive and well in orbit for long periods, said Ma Xingrui, a deputy commander of the manned space mission, according to Xinhua news agency.

Another senior engineer told state television that China was studying space docking, but warned it was no easy feat.

"I think it's like launching a needle up there, then having a thread on the ground, hundreds of kilometers below, and finally you have to put the thread through the needle," said the engineer, Su Shuangning.

To send aloft the much larger, 20-tonne space station that China has planned, it will also need a new generation of more powerful rockets. Technological delays have held back the launch of those new rockets until about midway through the next decade, officials have said.

"China is still quite far behind the United States and Russia (in space technology)," Jiao Weixin, a space scientist at Peking University, told Reuters. "It's unrealistic to speak of us catching up. We're just doing our best to narrow the gap."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)