Houston we have a problem! Chinese astronauts return from space as US looks on

A space capsule carrying three Chinese astronauts has landed safely in northern China after a 15-day trip to the country’s prototype space station.
The Shenzhou 10’s descent module landed by parachute in Inner Mongolia on Wednesday with the three crew members said to be in ‘good health’. It was the second manned mission to the experimental Tiangong 1 space station – launched in 2011 – with China hoping to have a permanent space presence by 2020. The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft is China’s fifth manned space mission since 2003 and the 15-day mission was the longest time a manned Chinese spacecraft has been in orbit.
It beat Shenzou 9’s mission time by two days.
China Central Television showed the re-entry of the capsule, dangling from an orange parachute, and its landing on flat grasslands shortly after 8 a.m. China time. The astronauts began emerging about 90 minutes after landing, helped out of the nose of the capsule by workers in white jumpsuits and into waiting chairs, smiling and waving to the TV camera. The Shenzhou 10 was commanded by Nie Haisheng, with Zhang Xiaoguang and female astronaut Wang Yaping also on board.
Yaping is China’s second female astronaut to ever complete a space mission. While in space, the three astronauts beamed the first ever live science class from space to 60 million schoolchildren across the country. The 50-minute televised physics lecture was on the effects of weightlessness.
After emerging from the capsule, Haisheng said: ‘Space is our dream, the fatherland is our home.
‘Thanks to all compatriots who supported us and best wishes for the wealth and success of our fatherland and the ever greater happiness of our people.’
Wang Yaping added: ‘I hope all our young friends may wish beautiful dreams and may their dreams come true.
‘This mission made me realise two dreams: my dream of flying to outer space, and my dream of being a teacher,” she told CCTV. ‘If you have a dream, you can succeed.’ At a news conference in Beijing, Wang Zhaoyao, director of China’s manned space program, said the mission went ‘perfectly’. The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft was launched on June 11 from a remote site in the Gobi desert in China’s far west.
Plans call for a working space lab, the Tiangong 2, to be put into orbit in two years, which will then be replaced by a three-module permanent station in 2020. The future station will weigh about 60 tonnes, which is slightly smaller than NASA’s Skylab of the 1970s and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station.
China was barred from participating in the ISS, largely because of U.S. objections over political differences and the Chinese program’s close military links.
Alongside the manned program, China is developing the Long March 5 heavier-lift rocket needed to launch the Tiangong 2. It also plans to send a rover to the moon, possibly followed by a crewed lunar mission if officials decide to combine the human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs.
The Global Times, a tabloid published by the same company that puts out the official Communist Party newspaper the People’s Daily, echoed some criticism among the public about the expense of China’s space programme.
‘Currently, China’s passion to develop space technology mainly lingers at the government level. ‘Some even blame the government for political vanity and question whether the money couldn’t be spent improving people’s livelihoods,’ the paper said in an editorial, published before the landing.
Beijing insists its space program is for peaceful purposes but the U.S. Defence Department has highlighted China’s increasing space capabilities. It recently claimed that Beijing is pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.