The successful launch of China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft has drawn interest and praise from foreign space experts marking the growing maturity of China's manned space program.
The successful launch of the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with the country's first female and two other astronauts is another step forward in China's space development, said Russian space scientist Igel Rosov who added that the current mission is considered as a major step toward building a permanent space station.
Joan Johnson-Freese, a US space policy expert and professor at the U.S. Naval War College on Rhode Island, said that China has already successfully implemented its manned space program and now was showing its more advanced human spaceflight capability in docking. China has become one of the pioneer countries in space exploration, and other countries will be glad to see China's progress, Freese said.
William Anderson, a space professor at Purdue University and former official of NASA headquarters, said that China's space activity will stir the public's passion for learning science, engineering and mathematics. While the mission itself is not unusual, US ysts told The New York Times, it extends China's remarkable pace in developing its space program.
"It is the speed with which China is ticking off these boxes in developing their program that is interesting," said Jeff Kueter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, which focuses on how science influences public policy.
Eric Agre, director of the Ghana Space Science and Technology Center, told Xinhua that China's repeated successful launches of manned spacecraft show that the country is becoming increasingly mature in space technology. China's leading position in space science has offered new opportunities for Ghana-China cooperation in this regard, Agre said.
