China finally has sent a man into space and brought him back alive. Good achievement. Sure its 42 years after Yuri Gagarin and the Sepos did it. All the newspapers are full of adulation for the Chinese space program and how historic it is.

I have to say it is impressive, in a different way. To achieve this must have taken plenty of money and work. Sure there are some military applications, but none that I can think of that require a man in space rather than the already working and viable rockets the Chinese have been sending up for years. China has had plenty of economic growth and its Eastern coast is prosperous. But that leaves huge chunks of the countryside and slums of the big cities with plenty of poverty. It's treatment of AIDS is a disgrace (The Peking Duck has plenty on this). There are many different places where this money could have been better spent by the Chinese Government. Instead they choose to launch a space craft for the sake of national pride.

I cannot imagine the same hoopala for the first Chinese computer. Or the first Chinese radio. Or anything that has been first done somewhere else and then done by another country later. That's because being first is something; even being second is not bad if it was a close run thing. But third, 40 years late? Let's use another example. Who ran bronze in the 100 metres in the 1964 Olympics. Yes you can use Google and find the answer, the point is you don't know and you don't really care.