The news has been followed in the specialty press. The general press has not taken a huge interest in the story. After the flight, when all the China-tech detractors are silent, assuming the flight is successful, there will be some editorial pieces but no alarm.
Yet for the first time in the nation's history, the idea of Chinese spaceflight is not something merely fictional for these students. China's manned space ambitions are right now at T-minus days - and counting. Sometime in the daylight hours in the next two weeks, from a remote pad in western Gansu Province, China will attempt to put a single astronaut into orbit for probably24 hours. The launch of a Shenzhou 5 capsule on top of a Long March 2F rocket is the next giant leap in a Chinese space program that, on paper, is every bit as ambitious as the US Apollo missions of the 1960s - with Beijing aiming later at a space station, the moon, and beyond.
If the Shenzhou 5 is successful, China enters an elite club of nations - including only the US and Russia - that has sent men and women into space.
The budding Chinese program is expected to galvanize national pride and unity. It also positions China to eventually develop a satellite and communications-based technology that is central to the kinds of military operations the US has been showcasing in Afghanistan and Iraq.***