JIUQUAN, China – China, a rising space power, provided a rare look into its top-secret launch center Wednesday, promoting the military-funded project as a lure for foreign investment and a key to the nation’s growing prosperity.
A police car with flashing lights led busloads of international journalists across northwestern China’s vast Gobi Desert to the Jiuquan space center, past armored patrol vehicles and a sign, in English: “Foreigners are not allowed to enter without permission.”
It was the first time China let foreign journalists enter, although officials forbade photographs of the command center with its rows of computer screens or the mammoth assembly hall where workers built the spacecraft that lifted China’s first astronaut into orbit last October.
For the secrecy-conscious national government, Jiuquan houses treasures to be guarded closely. But to local officials, Jiuquan is a blue-ribbon brand name just waiting to be marketed far and wide.
“No matter what products are named after Jiuquan, they will sell,” said Hao Yuan, assistant to the governor of Gansu province, where part of the space center is located.
“We welcome foreign cooperation in the fields of aerospace and aviation,” Hao said. “We would also like to provide launch services to foreign companies.”
Like most local officials, Hao has never visited the Jiuquan space center. But it was officials in Gansu who lobbied Beijing to open it up. “Otherwise, few reporters would come here,” he said.
China stands to reap big benefits from good publicity about its space program – both in the economic potential it represents and the national prestige it encourages at home and abroad.
Located on a sprawling 1,900 square miles, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center is an island of technological achievement in one of the country’s poorest regions. Farm incomes in nearby villages average $470 a year as peasants struggle to coax cotton and corn to grow in the arid climate.
The space center entered history on Oct. 15, 2003, when China’s first astronaut, Col. Yang Liwei, blasted off from it. He orbited Earth 14 times in a modified Russian Soyuz capsule before landing safely to a hero’s welcome.
Only China, Russia and the United States have sent men into space.
China wants to land an unmanned craft on the moon by 2010 and ultimately build its own space station. It has scheduled its second manned mission for autumn 2005, aiming to put two astronauts into orbit this time.
Research is carried out in a cluster of modest white buildings decorated with framed pictures of rockets. Banners exhort workers to “love the motherland and give selflessly” – emphasizing the role of the space program in polishing national prestige.
Other slogans focus on scientific achievement, such as one huge sign at the launch pad.
“Don’t compromise on details,” it says. “Don’t miss by even a fraction of a second.”
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