When East Meets Quest

It's a day worth remembering. China has successfully sent off its first manned spacecraft at 9:00 this morning. The nation's first taikonaut, Yang Li Wei, should be just finishing his lunch now.

I'm having a hard time sitting through the rest of my day. With 90% of my colleagues at the electronics fair, the deserted office leaves me with buzzing ears and nothing to do. It makes me wonder how Yang Li Wei is killing his time in space, all alone yet with his every move being watched. It would've been nice to send at least one other person on the Shenzhou V to share the vacuum-sealed cha siu and the oh-my-god-I'm-in-space or oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die moments.

How much more would it cost to send two astronauts rather than one anyway? We could've raised more than enough funds by charging admission to the launch. SOME of the 1.2 billion people in the country must be willing to pay a good amount to witness the Kodak moment firsthand.

And if we're going to spend an astronomical figure on an astronomical task, shouldn't we at least make it a "task"? If you're going to climb up a stepladder, at least fix the light. But we just wanted to see if we could do it. And so Yang continues his way on the fifth out of 14 orbits of merry-go-around.

With the success of this human space mission, China can be the first to offer space traveling. I'm definitely thrilled to know that I may just be able to spend Christmas 2004 on a space cruise, it's gotta be safer than traveling on tour buses in China.