Candidates will go through an initial selection process before going to China for intensive instruction on how to operate Shenzhou ships
China will soon begin training foreign astronauts to travel to its recently completed space station. The space program, long a source of national pride and a symbol of technological progress, will take on a new diplomatic and political character in ways similar to the US and former Soviet Union programs. Several countries have asked to travel to Tiangong station, Chen Shanguang, an official with the program, said in an interview with state-run CCTV broadcast on Saturday.
“Soon we will start selecting candidates from those nations for joint flights to our space station, and they will be able to work with our astronauts to carry out scientific tasks in space,” Chen, deputy director of Chinese manned spaceflight planning, said in an interview collected on Sunday. Monday night by the official newspaper China Daily.
The candidates will go through an initial selection process before going to China for intensive instruction on how to operate the Shenzhou spacecraft, as well as life and work aboard the orbital outpost, it added. “We also hope that foreign candidates can learn something about Chinese culture because they will be aboard a Chinese space station,” she noted. Chen did not clarify whether fluency in the language would be required, although experts interviewed by China Daily expected it to be that of the job at the station.
China completed Tiangong in November after adding the third of three modules: Tianhe, which has command and accommodation functions. Beijing built its plant after being locked out of the International Space Station (ISS), mainly because of US objections over the Chinese space program’s close ties to the People’s Liberation Army, the military branch of the Communist Party.