The CCP refers to the Chinese Communist Party. China has cloaked its space program in secrecy, ostensibly to avoid embarrassment in the event of failure.
Stung by a string of failed satellite launches in the 1980s and '90s, China has kept recent lift-offs quiet, announcing them only after success was confirmed.
The date of the launch of the next Shenzhou -- meaning "Divine Ship" -- is a state secret but is expected around the October 1 National Day holidays. Repeated requests to interview space officials have been rejected.
China's first astronauts -- dubbed "taikonauts" from "taikong," the Chinese word for space -- are faceless. China has yet to tell the world who they are, other than they were plucked from the ranks of top fighter pilots.
MILITARY APPLICATIONS
There are no public details on the launch's budget, though it is believed to be a fraction of U.S. manned space flight costs and is covered under rapidly expanding military outlays.
The launch by China is going ahead despite the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated in February while re-entering the atmosphere. Seven astronauts died.
Experts said China's space program had no big technology breakthroughs but would incrementally improve existing space technologies such as computers, materials, electronics, rockets, guidance and life support.
It comes as no surprise that China's space program may have military applications.
"As the Soviet Union used its Soyuz capsules and Salyut space stations in the 1970s and 1980s to spy from space and carry out other forms of military research, so will the Chinese," said Curtis of Space Today Online.
Yu of the U.S. Naval Academy said: "This project may boost China's R&D on strategic missile programs, but the cost will be enormous for China."
China has hinted at more starry-eyed space plans. State media have reported on designs for a lunar probe that would be a step toward sending Chinese to the moon. ***
For those who accept that premise, it is vital that we get the space shuttle flying again as safely and as quickly as possible. Our very future may depend on it.
To not understand or acknowledge that Earth is but a stepping stone for humankind is to ignore history, reality and Manifest Destiny. Through age, natural catastrophe or by our own hand, life on Earth has a finite amount of time left. For the human species to go on, we must go out into the far and promising reaches of space. We will do this, or we will eventually perish on the stepping stone adjacent to endless possibilities and salvation.
....Human space flight is not a luxury, and the People's Republic of China, above all others, seems to recognize that. The PRC is poised to launch its first astronauts, and with them launch potentially the most ambitious plan ever for humans in space.
They have their eyes on the moon, Mars and beyond. The question for our country is: Do we cede the future of human space flight, and the future in general, to them or another nation?***