The manned space programme is crucial to achieving China's long-term political goals.

Should the US develop a new manned space programme?

Sharma was one of the people who endorsed the 2006 proposal for an Indian manned space programme.

I certainly hope that the US will find the comparatively small amount of money needed to continue space exploration and a manned space programme.

The antecedents of this had been experiments carried out in Canada on volunteers, ostensibly in support of a manned space programme.

According to Niu Hongguang, the deputy commander-in-chief of the manned space programme, the backup launch windows will be in July or August 2013.

In the Soviet Union popular support for the manned space programme was dwindling at a time of great economic hardship and political uncertainty for the majority of the population.

Christa McAuliffe was 12 years old when Alan Shepard launched America's manned space programme in May 1961, with a 15-minute sub-orbital flight.

The emphasis placed by Kennedy on a manned space programme, designed to put a man on the moon by 1970, was part of the same desire to push ahead of the Soviet Union.

Swakopmund tracking station is a Chinese space tracking station in Swakopmund, Namibia, South-West Africa which is used for the Chinese manned space programme.

China has its own contemporary manned space programme, Project 921, and has carried out cooperation and exchanges with countries such as Russia and Germany in manned and unmanned space projects.

Until the definition of the ELIPS Programme, no European research plan had been defined for implementation by the European Space Agency of research under the Manned Space Programme.

In this regard, what is significant about the manned space programme is that only superpowers have achieved this capability, and Tiangong-1 and its successors are for China, symbolic proof that China is emerging as a 21st Century superpower.

The mission also featured a biological sample supplied by Germany and the European Space Agency, which was cited as an example of "international cooperation in the field of manned space" by Zhang Jianqi, deputy chief commander of China's manned space programme.

Wang Wenbao, director of the CMSE, told a news conference in 2011 "Considering past achievements and the bright future, we feel the manned space programme should have a more vivid symbol, and that the future space station should carry a resounding and encouraging name.

Former NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin says the International Space Station has a role to play as NASA moves forward with a new focus for the manned space programme, which is to go out beyond Earth orbit for purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery.