The United States has offered its best wishes to China as it prepared to send astronauts into space for the first time.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said a Chinese manned space flight would obviously be an important event in space launch history. And the US wishes China every success and the astronauts a safe return.
China plans to send a manned craft into space later this year. It also hopes to launch a space probe capable of orbiting the moon by 2005 or 2006.
(CRI News September 30, 2003)
