Speculation about the level of sophistication of Shenzhou and China�s human spaceflight plans have reached fever pitch. The Internet and aerospace press have dissected the story with gusto, exposing all manner of theories relating to the launch.

All of this is consistent with the most significant goal of Shenzhou�s first mission, and the Shenzhou program in general: Generating a response from the world. As long as governments and aerospace experts remain unresolved in their response to the mission, the first Shenzhou mission will still be an active concern.

The outpouring of news releases, computer animation and video footage that heralded the debut of Shenzhou caused a sensation. So much information at one time, after so little, for so long.

Never mind the fact that almost nothing for sure was explained about the spacecraft or its mission. We were quite content to digest what we had received.

Since the first announcement of Shenzhou�s reentry, however, there has been almost nothing else.

We have seen the Shenzhou descent module transported to Beijing for an official �opening� ceremony, during which the dummy Taikonaut who had flown on board was extracted. How strange this was!

The inanimate capsule was given a reception comparable to that of a returning hero, as Communist Party cadres clustered around it for a group photo. Such a reception would be entirely fitting for a real Taikonaut at the end of an actual crewed mission, but no space program has ever ended an uncrewed test flight with so much pomp.

In the secrecy-obsessed days of the early Soviet program, no such event ever took place with Vostok test missions. Even the open-natured Mercury program failed to produce such a gathering. China never carried out such an ceremony with its first recoverable satellites, possibly because they were primarily concerned with photoreconnaissance.

Apparently, the desire to extract as much fanfare as possible from Shenzhou has led to a propaganda push that is unprecedented in space history.

Before we leave the reception, it�s also worthwhile pointing out that the capsule would certainly have been opened and processed long beforehand. The thought of a mishap occurring during the official ceremony would have been unthinkable.

Shenzhou�s descent module contains manoeuvring thrusters, which probably use hydrazine, a highly toxic fuel. A leak from an unsafed engine would have produced very interesting consequences for the proceedings!

We have also had the contents of Shenzhou�s descent module described to us. Apart from the dummy Taikonaut, which doesn�t seem to have a cute name like Ivan Ivanovich (the Soviet Vostok test dummy), we have a few seeds, flags and commemorative items. Nothing that actually required a life support system apparently flew, and we do not know if this first Shenzhou even carried one.

The Chinese have said publicly that it will take months to process all the engineering data from this flight. This is a reasonable statement, but the Chinese have been reluctant to release any of the data that they have so far.

This failure to reveal anything apart from pictures of the spacecraft and waffling propaganda statements will only contribute to the distrust of Shenzhou�s capabilities that is steadily growing.

Probably the last statement that we will see from within China for some time has come from Zhao Bing, a director of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. Quoted through a news feed in various publications, Zhao seemed to give the impression that the launch of a real Taikonaut was not far away.

But a closer examination of this report suggests otherwise. Zhao states that there will need to be more test flights, a point that will surprise no one. He also failed to nominate when he expects the flight to take place.

Again, this adds nothing to our knowledge pool. It is not even clear that Zhao was speaking with any detailed knowledge, or personal authority on the overall course of the Shenzhou program. Perhaps the correspondent, and the agency that distributed the report, should pay more attention to detail before they choose to talk up a story.

Similar confusion clouded the impressions the general public formed of the early Soviet program. Back in the sixties, a combination of information scarcity and a desire to sell news meant that almost any offhand remark was turned into evidence of an impending Soviet takeover of the cosmos.

Zhao may have been disciplined by his ruling party for speaking out this way, and hopefully that discipline won�t be too severe. However, it is also possible that this was another carefully planned element of China�s post-flight promotions.

That�s it. The Chinese have launched their spacecraft and made their proclamations. It is now up to the West to react to the launch, and try to decipher just how China expects us to react.

In my earlier article (Shenzhou: The Fun�s Just Beginning), I suggested that the launch of Shenzhou could be used as leverage for China�s attempts to enter the World Trade Organisation. Other analysts have disputed this suggestion, pointing out that it will have little influence on most nations.

This may be so, but this does not rule out the possibility that China will at least try. More nations that just the first-world powerbrokers of Europe and the USA must be cajoled in order to smooth China�s entry to the WTO.

For some nations, a human spaceflight program may well seem impressive. The USA and the Soviet Union used their own programs for grandstanding to smaller states in the past. It�s only natural for China to try to follow this example.

The Chinese have already tried to openly use Shenzhou as propaganda muscle on the issue of Ballistic Missile Defense, despite the fact that BMD technology would have little in common with Shenzhou or its launcher.

To an informed Western observer, this too would seem ludicrous, but it has already happened. If propaganda is the primary goal of the Shenzhou program, it makes sense to try to graft it to as many issues as possible. So far, China has yet to forge a connection between Shenzhou and Taiwan, but even this could happen in the region.

If Shenzhou seems like an unlikely propaganda weapon for any of these scenarios, it�s worth remembering that the Chinese Communist Party has never been particularly sophisticated in controlling its image outside its borders, or even inside them.

The government cannot even tolerate the fact that the Falun Gong meditation movement is more popular than the Communist Party, and has responded with amazingly draconian crackdowns. Brute force, either through demonstration or direct application, seems to have characterised most of China�s recent propaganda efforts.

Another factor that could have influenced China�s decision to use human spaceflight as a propaganda tool is Sputnik shock. The launch of the world�s first satellite, and the Soviet space achievements that followed, created a level of admiration and panic that has been equalled by few other single events. But mass psychology is a fickle thing.

Sputnik shock was mostly caused by factors that had nothing to do with Sputnik itself. Even the Soviets were caught unprepared for the reaction their ball in the sky generated. In 1957, the world was not only plagued by the tensions of the Cold War, but an amazing lack of any knowledge at all about the Soviet Union.

The real fear of Sputnik came from what we couldn�t see, but could assume. If a nation could launch a satellite, it was presumably advanced on other fronts, notably its industrial infrastructure and technology base.

The so-called �missile gap� between the USA and USSR, along with other fears of Soviet might, was fuelled by the extrapolation of this single high-flying data point. In retrospect, we know that the Soviet Union was much weaker than Sputnik had led the West to believe, and we also know that a similar campaign of deception won�t work with China.

Information on China�s military and industrial strength is plentiful in the West, through both overt and covert channels. Seeing another space feat does nothing to alter this perception. China doesn�t seem any more powerful today than it did before Shenzhou was launched, but to an ageing group of Communist Party leaders who witnessed the fifties, the concept could have a certain level of appeal.

The launch date of Shenzhou has also been a matter of debate. Why launch weeks after China�s grand celebrations for fifty years of Communist rule? Would an earlier launch have been more appropriate? Certainly, and that was probably the original plan. The most likely explanation for the delay was that the spacecraft simply wasn�t ready in time.

China may have surprised the West with the launch and the confirmation of certain details of the spacecraft, but much of the impact of Shenzhou�s launch has been diluted by past events. China�s repeated statements on human spaceflight over the course of several decades reduced any surprise that they were planning such a mission.

Furthermore, careful investigative work by Western observers produced highly accurate impressions of the Shenzhou spacecraft long before it was unveiled. Instead of amazement, the collective response of the West seems to be one of merely wondering why it took so long.

China should also remember that the public�s attention span for news is pretty short. If nothing more happens in the next few weeks, the world in general will forget about Shenzhou, leaving just the aerospace community and intelligence officials to keep their vigil.

The Chinese Communist Party will certainly be watching the world carefully to see how news of Shenzhou has been received, and if it has made an impression. If reactions so far are any guide, they will probably be disappointed at the response.

Human spaceflight is expensive, and if Shenzhou fails in its primary mission of bolstering China�s image, the project could be headed for a grim fate. It seems reasonable to believe China�s earlier statement that Shenzhou won�t carry Taikonauts for years.

In the meantime, policies could change, and some of Shenzhou�s political taskmasters could simply drop dead. China�s human spaceflight dreams have already disappeared and been reincarnated in different forms on several occasions. Could Shenzhou be just another episode in this pattern?

Morris Jones is a Sydney-based journalist and consultant. His academic Web site is at www.uow.edu.au/crearts/journalism/morris/survey. He can be reached at morrisjones�NOSPAM�hotmail.com. Replace �NOSPAM� with @ to send email.

A POWERFUL DRAGON
China Prepares To Test New ICBM
Beijing (AFP) December 7, 1999 - China will imminently test the Julang 2, an intercontinental sea-to-surface ballistic missile with an estimated range at least 9,000 kilometres (5580 miles) that will boost its nuclear deterent capability, foreign military experts in Beijing said Tuesday. "The test is imminent," said an expert who asked to not be named, but added the missile, capable of hitting any city in the United States and Europe, could be equipped with a small nuclear warhead.

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