China puts man into orbit to join elite space club with Russia and US: "China puts man into orbit to join elite space club with Russia and US

JIUQUAN, China (AFP) Oct 15, 2003
China Wednesday launched an astronaut into space aboard the Shenzhou V craft in a historic mission which catapults the country into an elite club alongside Russia and the United States.
The Long March II F rocket carrying the capsule blasted into clear skies from the remote Gobi desert in north China's Inner Mongolia at 9:00 a.m.for a 21-hour flight that will see the craft orbit the Earth 14 times.
Shenzou V went into preset orbit 10 minutes after take-off as China became just the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space 42 years after Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's epic first flight.
Russian Gagarin was the first human in space on April 12, 1961 in a flight lasting 108 minutes. Days later on May 5 American Alan Shepard spent just 15 minutes on a suborbital flight.
People's Liberation Army Lieutenant Colonel Yang Liwei, 38, was at the controls Wednesday and reported 34 minutes into the flight that he 'feels good' and that the craft was operating normally.
'I feel good, see you tomorrow,' Yang, a fighter pilot with more than 1,300 hours flight time, was quoted as saying.
Chinese President Hu Jintao watched the blast-off at the Jiuquan Launch Center and hailed the successful launch as 'the glory of our great motherland'.
He said the culmination of the 11-year space program was a 'historic step of the Chinese people in the advance of climbing over the peak of the world's science and technology'.
The Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese space officials as saying the maiden manned flight was a 'success'."
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