China stokes national pride with celebrated first spacewalk

Maneuver tests nation's mastery of technology

In this image taken at the Beijing Space Command and Control Center, Zhai Zhigang walked out of the orbit module of the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft for a spacewalk yesterday. (Xinhua/ Associated Press)

BEIJING - A Chinese taikonaut stepped outside the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft yesterday and waved a small red Chinese flag at the millions of his countrymen watching on live television and cheering at their nation's latest conquest.

With the 15-minute spacewalk, China became the third country to accomplish the feat, following the United States and Russia.

"In the vast space, I felt proud of our motherland," taikonaut Zhai Zhigang told President Hu Jintao later over a telephone connecting the spacecraft with a control center in Beijing. Hu asked the taikonaut, as astronauts are known in China, about how it felt to be in space, and thanked him for the success of the mission.

"Your success represents a new breakthrough in our manned space program," Hu told the astronauts during the exchange, which also was broadcast live.

"The motherland and the people thank you," said Hu, chairman of the Communist Party and government military committees that oversee the space program.

During the spacewalk, in which Zhai floated tethered outside the spacecraft, his sole task was to retrieve a rack attached to the outside of the orbital module containing an experiment involving solid lubricants.

"Greetings to all the people of the nation and all the people of the world," Zhai said into an external camera he floated halfway out of the open hatch.

Fellow astronaut Liu Boming also emerged briefly from the capsule to hand Zhai a Chinese flag. The third crew member, Jing Haipeng, monitored the ship from inside.

The launch marked the third time China has sent a person into space. It launched its first manned mission, Shenzhou 5, in 2003. That was followed by a two-man mission in 2005.

China is hoping that the spacewalk will lead to the development of a permanent space station by 2020. It is also pursuing lunar exploration and may attempt to land a man on the moon in the next decade - possibly ahead of NASA's 2020 target date for returning to the moon.

Zhai, a 41-year-old fighter pilot, grew up poor, supported by a mother who sold sunflower seeds at the market. It is a biography that for many encapsulates the rags-to-riches story of the Chinese nation.

Chinese media boasted that the $4.4-million spacesuit he wore outside the craft was made entirely in China, while the two other crew members on the mission wore Russian suits.

The spacewalk was the highlight of Shenzhou 7's 68-hour mission and took place late yester-day afternoon Beijing time, a convenient moment for people to watch. Many people gathered around large screens, at times cheering proudly, "Jia you!" - literally "add oil" - the same cheer used at the last month's Olympics and other sporting events.

"This shows how well developed China is in its high technology," said Yang Chang, 32, a trader watching on a widescreen television inside a noodle shop. Yang said he has been losing sleep, having followed the mission on live television since Thursday night, when the spacecraft was launched in the Gobi Desert.

Cao Qian, 22, a recent university graduate with a degree in electronics and information technology, said he hoped the spacewalk would bolster the sciences in China.

"We have a big population. Our scientists are more into theory than practice. We are still behind many other countries - the United States, Japan, much of Europe. It will be hard for us to catch up," said Cao, who was watching in the same noodle shop.

China is a latecomer to space exploration compared with Russia and the United States. Mao Zedong himself is reported to have commented in 1957 that his country couldn't launch a potato into space, much less a rocket.

Along with challenging Russia and the United States, the spacewalk ups the ante in China's competition with Asia's other aspiring space powers, Japan and India.

China's advances have spurred space spending by those two nations, partly for bragging rights but also in search of economic benefits such as a bigger slice of the commercial satellite launching business.

In step with its growing list of achievements, China's military-backed space program has grown progressively less secretive and officials have hinted in recent days at a desire for greater cooperation with other nations.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.