大象传媒

China's taikonauts in germ-free press conference

• James Reynolds
• 24 Sep 08, 11:58 AM GMT

China's about to send three men into space. The country wants to show them off, but it doesn't want any of them to get sick before they go. So, this afternoon, China's authorities arranged a news conference in which the astronauts took questions from behind a glass panel, thereby protecting them from potentially sickly journalists and officials marooned on the other side.

The three answered questions for a few minutes.

"I feel very honoured to be able to participate in this mission," said Zhai Zhigang, the commander.

Do they feel any pressure?

"You should pay attention to what you're doing right now," said Zhai, "You have to maintain a very even state of mind."

Any time for snapshots when you're out in space?

"When we have time we will take pictures and videos," said Liu Boming evenly.

The three men then stood up, saluted and left the room. Hopefully they didn't catch any germs.

On Thursday evening, they're set to take off in their rocket - the Shenzhou 7 - from China's central Gansu province (the government has invited a number of media agencies to cover the launch - but, sadly for us, the 大象传媒 isn't on the list.)

Then, on Saturday, Zhai Zhigang is expected to perform China's first ever space walk. This is the next step in a long-term space plan which eventually has China heading off to explore Mars and Jupiter as well.

The three men on this mission will be the 4th, 5th and 6th men that China's sent into space - the first Chinese citizen to leave this world was Yang Liwei in October 2003.

Everything seems to be going well so far. But there's one small problem that China hasn't fully addressed: what, exactly, should you call a Chinese space traveller?

The front page of the English-language China Daily happily refers to "astronauts" as did a state TV translator during the press conference. But the official news agency, Xinhua, refers to the space travellers as "taikonauts" (taken from the Chinese word Tai Kong which means space).

Any preferences?

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