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China starts selecting women taikonauts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-10-15 14:28
China has begun to work on standards to select women taikonauts, Chinese term
for astronauts, for future space missions, an official with the China Space
Center said.
Chen Shanguang, director of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center,
or simply China Space Center, said that women taikonauts are being trained to
carry out space missions.
Studies about the impact of space flight on women have been initiated, he
said. And a large number of experiments will be conducted to tell the
differences between men and women in space.
As women taikonauts have different requirements about environment and life
ensurence in a spacecraft, Chinese researchers will have to make extensive
studies, such as developing new space suits and devices to collect the excrement
of women.
China's Air Force Aeronautics University welcomed 35 women pilot trainees for
the eighth time in July this year. Experts say the country's first group of
female fighter pilots may grow out of them and the first female Chinese
taikonaut may be selected.
"My dream is to become China's first female fighter pilot and first female
taikonaut," said Tao Jiali, a student from southwest China's Sichuan Province to
the university.
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