China arches its enormous muscles and get ready to join the big nations. China sent a person to space in 2003, and finished its first spacewalk in the year 2008. Now China is the brand new guy in space. The successful docking of Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong 1 was televised live on national television. The successful space kiss more than 200 miles above the Earth marks a remarkable step for China to come closer to its 40 years of pursuit for manned space exploration.

Officials in Beijing said that the same unmanned exercise will take place and will involve astronauts in its quest to land on moon and launch its own space station by 2020. If everything will be all right according to Beijing’s plans, then China’s floating laboratory will quickly replace the aging ISS (International Space Station) which is co-owned by United States and its allies. “Even though the US and Russian aerospace engineers perfected this technology a long time ago does not hamper the spirits of the Chinese aeronautical engineers who have mastered the technology, almost 75% of the instruments and components used were locally manufactured” said Ms. Wu at a news conference on Thursday, describing the successful docking as “a historic breakthrough for our country and huge technical leap forward”.

This first step by China sparked a lot of statements from Western Scientists who claimed that the mission provided blatant evidence that the two-decade-old sanctions imposed on Chinese scientists limiting scientific exchanges between American and Chinese scientists had failed totally. The sanctions also meshed Chinese scientist from attending American space conferences, and China is not a member of the 16 nations whose astronauts are entitled to use the ISS.

Even though China was eliminated from the world’s elite space club, it has heavily relied upon its local aeronautical engineers backed by the government’s heavy spending in order to realize its space exploration dreams. In 2010 China sent up a 2nd lunar probe. In what can be termed as China’s breakthrough to today’s successful docking of its first space program, in recent years Chinese scientists mastered the art of engineering and launching of communication satellites, many of which have been sold to developing nations across the world. In 2007, Beijing successfully tested an antisatellite missile that angered Washington and many other international scientists for executing the target, an aged weather satellite, into hypothetically unsafe orbital debris.

The sanctions by the United States on Chinese Scientists have instead resulted to massive discoveries by the Chinese scientists. The restrictions do not seem to be hindering China’s space mission. In celebrating the successful docking on Thursday, Ms. Wu of China’s manned space program said that even if its spacecraft were domestically made, China would include any country that is willing to play a role in its aerospace program. Wu also said that German scientists had furnished Shenzhou 8, with equipment for conducting experimentations. And unlike the International Space Station, China’s space laboratory will have no membership limitations when it becomes fully in operation.

“The planned Chinese space station will be open to global scientists,” Ms. Wu said.