The chief designer of China's manned space program said on Friday the program is significant for the country's high-tech industries and the economy as a whole.

Wang Yongzhi said manned space technology was an indicator of the country's technological and economic prowess as well as comprehensive strength.

China's manned space program, launched in 1992, made history this week when its first astronaut Yang Liwei went into space and returned to earth safe and sound.

Speaking to Xinhua at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, where the country's first manned spacecraft Shenzhou-5 blasted off on Oct. 15, Wang said the program involved a number of sciences and high-tech sectors, including modern mechanics, astronomy, geosciences, aerospace medical sciences, space sciences, and technology concerning systems of engineering, autocontrol, computers, propulsion, telecommunications, remote sensing, new energy, new materials, microelectronics and photoelectronics.

"You cannot buy these high technologies on the market at any cost," said Wang, former president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which developed China's Long March carrier rockets.

China launched its manned space program later than the former Soviet Union and the United States, but it started at a higher level as all major key technologies used in the project were developed by Chinese scientists on their own.

Citing unique features of the spacecraft, rocket system, monitoring and telecommunication systems, the scientist said the program adopted a large number of independently developed technologies.

The breakthroughs in many major technological issues helped improve the country's scientific and technological strength in high-tech areas, Wang said.

Successful manned space programs could boost the development of the national economy as there were many valuable resources in space.

Many important resources on earth were not inexhaustible, and mankind had to look to other planets, the scientist said.

Space also provided a unique environment for scientific experiments under the conditions of a vacuum, strong radiation and micro-gravity, which are difficult to simulate on earth.

"We expect the manned space program to promote the development of many industries."

He said China's commercial rocket launch service and the booming sectors of nuclear power, satellite telecommunications and space remote sensing were all made possible by the country's programs to develop atomic weapons, satellites and rockets since the middle of the last century.

The country's manned space project had played an important role in training many scientists and engineers, he said.

Young and middle-aged people had become the backbone of the country's space sector with people under the age of 35 accounting for 70 percent of the total, Wang said.

Zhang Qingwei, general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CAST), manufacturer of the spacecraft and the carrier rocket, said the series of major breakthroughs made over recent decades had contributed to the success of the manned space mission.

"The 13 key technologies applied in making the spacecraft were all developed on our own and they are comparable with the most advanced in the world," said Zhang.

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2003)