China Completes its First Spacewalk

China Completes its First Spacewalk

Techtree News Staff, Sep 27, 2008 1724 hrs IST

"I have been out of the hatch, I'm feeling good," said Zhai Zhigang as he completed a 20 minute spacewalk

China has just completed its first ever spacewalk, making it one of the few countries to have stepped out of a space capsule and into the cold nothingness of space.

Earlier this week, China had succeesfully launched its three-man crew sitting inside the Shenzhou VII spacecraft using the Long March 2F rocket. The spacewalk, which was initially planned to be as long as 40 minutes, took all of 20 minutes and lasted between 08.35 GMT and 08.58 GMT. Zhai Zhigang, the lead taikonaut, spent these 20 minutes fetching a sample of solid lubricant which was placed outside of the craft before its launch.

He was wearing the Chinese-made Feitian ("fly the sky") suit which reportedly cost 30 million yuan. The suit has 10 layers of insulation, weighs 120 kg, and takes up to 15 hours to assemble and put on... Kinda like Iron Man's costume without the cool bits.

"I have been out of the hatch, I'm feeling good," Zhai said according to the Chinese national TV translator, "To all the people in my country and the world, my greetings. My country, please have faith in me. My team will finish this mission." There was some flag-waving afterwards.

China plans to build a spacelab in the future; their plans for space also include putting a Chinese on the moon, and a mission to Mars.

Related Links

LIFTOFF! China Launches for Space

Moon to be India's Backyard by 2020

Chandrayaan II design is complete

Tag keywords

China spacewalk successful Shenzhou VII space first Long March 2F

Discussion Board

(10) Comments

lin

,Beijing, on Oct 08, 2008 02:41 AM

yes,you are right china has developed so fast in the past 30 years. dont worry about the MADE in CHINA, which will give you a brand new feeling within the next 5 years, similar to the way of Japan doing their way.

Report abuse

tonyp4

,usa, on Sep 27, 2008 08:11 PM

* Congrats. a small step but a big leap for China. * You need a lot of technologies to support the space program, esp. US and the west deny the dual use technologies. * There are military uses for sure. Better missiles? China can shoot down all the GPS satellites except theirs, so they can control Taiwan without US missile interferences. However, from the last 50 years of history, how many times China sent soldiers outside their border vs US? * China is not invited to ISS due to human right issues. There is none if you compare China 30 years ago and China today. Now they can feed their huge population, cloth them...You're influenced by the news media and politicians to bash China and establish a common enemy.

Report abuse

Ronald

,DUnedin, NZ, on Sep 29, 2008 03:33 AM

Totally agree!

Report abuse

john passerella

,tucson,az, on Sep 27, 2008 07:47 PM

If you think the US space flights have become boring,the Chinese space trip was treated like todays weather.

Report abuse

Anant Bhushan

,Roorkee, on Sep 28, 2008 09:25 AM

I agree with this.. I am almost getting the feeling that the news is getting lost. And it could easily be missed.. :-) ... Isnt it supposed to be a BIG thing to go out in space. Yes US and Russians have been doing it for sometime now. But China doing it on their own must be applauded.. :-) .... And going by the way they do things... Finally we are going to end up with plenty of items on the moon with "Made in China" stamped on them.

Report abuse

Guess It

,Guessthattoo, on Sep 27, 2008 07:52 PM

I am annoyed with China's disturbing growth. This means we won't be spared of cross-eyed human-breeding machines out there in space too.[

Report abuse

Robert

,bbay, on Sep 27, 2008 07:57 PM

go easy on those racist remarks, will you?

Report abuse

Guess It

,Guessthattoo, on Sep 27, 2008 08:21 PM

tee hee