China has further taken a step into what is considered a 10year plan to place a manned permanent space station in orbit. On Tuesday Nov. 1st, they launched an unmanned spacecraft called the Shenzhou 8. China started their own space station program after being declined in trying to join the 16-nation International Space Station primarily based on the objections from the U.S. The objections were because of the U.S.'s fear that China’s program military links and technology they would be sharing with its chief economic and political competitor.The Shenzhou 8 will try to dock with an experimental module and carry out maneuvers to join with their Tiangong 1 module (8.5 ton module) which was launched last month. The Shenzhou 8 is expected to carry out two more missions, one being manned next year for practice with astronauts staying up for at least one month. Read full article
