Yang Liwei, China's first taikonaut, the Chinese term for
astronaut, on Saturday dismissed worries about the environmental
effects of a new space launch center to be built in the island
province of Hainan, saying the launches will be non-toxic and do no
harm to the local ecology.
Yang, who is visiting the tropical island, said space and
environment authorities had researched the impact of the new center
on the surrounding environment before choosing Wenchang as the site
for the country's fourth space launch center.
"The State Environment Protection Administration has concluded
that the construction of the new center and the launches of a new
range of carrier rockets will be non-toxic and won't damage the
environment in Wenchang and the Hainan island at large," said Yang,
43, now deputy director of the China Astronaut Research and
Training Center.
"The public needn't worry about environmental issues," he said.
"What's more, the launch center could become a landmark building in
Hainan and a tourist attraction."
Construction of the new center, which would serve the
next-generation rocket carriers, is expected to begin at the end of
this year, and the center would be in use within three to five
years, he added.
In 1958, China began building its first rocket launch site in
northwest China's Jiuquan. The country now has three space launch
grounds. The other two are located in Taiyuan, capital of north
China's Shanxi Province, and Xichang, in southwestern Sichuan
Province.
China launched its manned space program in 1999. It successfully
sent Yang Liwei into orbit on the Shenzhou V spacecraft in 2003. Yang spent about
21 hours in orbit.
Two years later, taikonauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng
completed a Chinese record five-day flight on the Shenzhou VI. All the taikonauts returned
safely.
(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2008)