Latest editorial
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, astronaut Ye Guangfu waves near the re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou-18 manned space mission after it landed successfully at the Dongfeng landing site in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, November 4, 2024
THREE Chinese astronauts returned to Earth today after six months on the Tiangong (“heavenly palace”) space station.
The successful mission, which involved experiments in setting up an aquarium in space, is a further boost to China’s rapidly developing space programme. The country intends to become the second, after the United States, to put a human being on the moon by 2027, and is already the first to have landed a robot on the dark side of the moon.
China completed the Tiangong space station in 2022. It was forced to develop its own station because the United States bans it from using the International Space Station, citing a 2011 law prohibiting any collaboration on space technology with Chinese nationals. The Xinhua news agency reports that China is in discussions on selecting and training astronauts from other countries.
One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results
A chance find when clearing out our old office led us to renew a friendship across 5,000 miles and almost nine decades of history, explains ROGER McKENZIE
