found diplomatic and economic clout. "You will once again show that the Chinese people have the will, confidence and capability to mount scientific peaks ceaselessly," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as telling the astronauts. Fei Junlong, 40, and Nie Haisheng, 41, colonels in the People's Liberation Army, were handpicked from 14 fighter pilots and had been in the running for China's first manned space launch in 2003. "There is nothing to worry about," state television quoted the pair as saying before Shenzhou VI lifted off as light snow fell. "We will accomplish the mission resolutely. See you in Beijing." "I feel good," Fei, a native of China's richest city, Kunshan, said minutes after the blast-off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, deep in the desert of the northwestern province of Gansu. State television broadcast the lift-off live and showed the pair inside the Shenzhou capsule waving at the camera after the spacecraft entered orbit. They later showed the pair flipping through flight manuals and pushing buttons by computer screens. In the Chinese capital, President Hu Jintao and Vice President Zeng Qinghong watched the lift-off at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Centre. China is determined to become a serious space player and set up a National Astronaut Training Centre in Beijing this week. Xinhua said it was only the third such facility in the world.
