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Statue Planned for China's First Man in Space

Posted on: Sunday, 19 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

BEIJING (AFP) -- The municipality in which China's first man in space was born wants to erect a statue of the astronaut, who has become a national hero since his 21-hour space voyage this week, report said Saturday.

The northeastern Huludao municipality, which includes Yang Liwei's birth place of Suizhong, wants the statue to stand next to a model of the Shenzhou V which took Yang into space on Wednesday, an official said in the Beijing Youth Daily.

Zhang Dongsheng, Communist Party secretary for Huludao, which is in northeastern Liaoning province, said however he would wait for an official green light before going ahead with the project.

Meanwhile, the Number Two school in Suizhong district, where the astronaut studied, will be renamed "Yang Liwei school", also according to the Beijing Youth Daily.

Yang is in good health after his voyage, in which he orbited the Earth 14 times, reported the Xinhua news agency, citing a source at the Beijing-based Aerospace Medical Engineering Institute, at which he was being examined.

The source said the taikonaut's recovery period was likely to last only two or three days instead of the initially expected week.

China on Wednesday became the third nation after the United States and Russia to put a man into space, with Russia charting the way 42 years ago.

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