Sources are stating that the Chinese government has launched the Shenzhou V spacecraft. More as the story develops.
UPDATE: The Washington Post is confirming the launch occured approximately 20 minutes ago. The taikonaut is Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, 38, a fighter pilot in the Chinese Air Force. Touchdown for the craft should be approximately one hour from now after a 14-orbit mission.
UPDATE: Actually, each orbit is 90 minutes, so touchdown for the craft will be in approximately 21 hours.
China Daily has a biography of Yang Liwei.
My god, talk about the most ignored story of the day… on such a comparatively slow day, this should have grabbed headlines. It barely made the front pages of most papers…
But, despite my waining support for manned space flight, I definitely think that going to the moon is a better challenge for Chinese national will than invading Taiwan… after all, it could be argued that most of our great breakthroughs and technological developments of the late 20th century were aftershocks to Apollo.