"The road to manned space flight is long and is a huge undertaking that is full of risks," the leading People's Daily said in an editorial on the return of the unmanned space capusule Sunday.

An unverified photo showing the reentry capsule after touching down in Inner Mongolia. Dubbed 'Shenzhou' by President Jiang Zemin, the capsule is part of China's manned space flight program. Xinhua/AFP Photo

"But the price for the future of mankind and our country's politics, military, economy and science and technology will be hugely influential."

The 21-hour, 14-orbit flight of the "Shenzhou" space craft would be beneficial to resolving the difficulties facing mankind like diminishing resources, environmental degradation and a population crisis, Chinese papers said with little elaboration.

The state-controlled Chinese media failed to detail costs of the manned space flight program, nor was it clear whether China hoped to develop a space shuttle, a space station or a lunar program.

"None of this has been announced, I don't know what the future plans are," Zhang Zhiqian, press officier at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Consortium, the state-run backer of the program, told AFP.

Sai Liu Xiaohong, at the State Aerospace Bureau, said: "There is no plan and there is no way to predict what will happen."

"This technology is very complicated. China will launch several test flights before putting a man into space," she told AFP.

Neither official dared to venture an estimate into the costs of the launch or the overall program.

Western diplomats and industry experts based in China strongly underlined national prestige and patriotism as the main factors behind the program, but questioned its costs.

"The costs, of course, are astronomical," a China-based western space industry official told AFP.

A rocket launch could cost anywhere between 50 million and 100 million dollars, while the upgrading, reliability checks and back-up systems required for manned space flight could result in costs quadrupling, he said.

"How many manned space capsules are you going to build? A handful of space capsules could be pretty expensive," he said on condition of anonymity.

It was unclear how China would pay for the program, but success in the manned space program could carry over into China's commercial satellite launches which already have a proven track record, he said.

"It's unclear what China's pricing mechanism is like because first of all these are state programs bringing prestige to China, so it will have a lot of government funding," he said.

One thing was sure though, no money would be made from the manned space program, a western diplomat in Beijing said.

Most of the tests, like weather, intelligence, imaging and military experiments that could be carried out with a manned space flight were already being tested in China's recovery satellite program, he said.

"This above all else is a national prestige thing," the diplomat stressed.

Said the space industry official: "I expect a few manned space flights, but I don't think they will go into a space shuttle, space station program or a lunar program.

"The best thing for China would be for them to join in the international space station and be more cooperative in this area, that would be the most rationale choice."

Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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