Our Singapore Government has been encouraging women to take up
important roles and help create a better society. Its like while
guys do their National service, we should contribute too.
We don't just work and contribute to the economy but we also
become certain decision makers to improve lives.
I am so happy to see that China is sending their first female
taikonaut!
From Channel news asia:
China could launch its first woman into space as early as
2012, state media reported.
Yang Liwei, who in 2003 became China's first astronaut and
is now in charge of new recruits for the space programme, said the
search for the first woman in space was under way, the China Daily
said.
"I believe Chinese women will soon be seen in space," said
Yang during a webchat, the paper reported.
Sui Guosheng, an officer in charge of recruitment with the
Chinese Air Force, said the female "taikonaut," China's word for
astronauts, was expected to blast off in 2012.
The potential female astronauts would be recruited from
among 16 female fighter pilots who graduated in April, Sui told the
Nanfang Weekly, according to the China Daily report.
The pilots, who were chosen from 150,000 high school
graduates, were the first batch of Chinese women qualified to fly
fighter jets, the report said.
China became the third nation to put a man in space when
Yang piloted the one-man Shenzhou-5 space mission in 2003, part of
the country's rising space ambitions.
The Chang'e-1 probe was launched in 2007 and is the first
stage of China's lunar programme, which includes landing an
unmanned rover on the surface by 2012 and a manned mission by
around 2020.
The world's first female astronaut was the Soviet Union's
Valentina Tereshkova, who stayed in space for three days in
1963.
