China will not carry any plant seeds aboard Shenzhou VI, its
second manned spacecraft, a senior official said Monday. The
announcement came after media reports speculated that the
spacecraft would carry seeds, animal semen or other experimental
items for space mutation breeding.
"Since Shenzhou V, which took the first Chinese astronaut Yang
Liwei 14 times around the earth for a 21-hour period in 2003, space
experiments in China have been focusing on human activities in
outer space," Liu Luxiang, director of the Center for Space
Breeding under the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, told China Daily yesterday in a telephone
interview.
The second manned space mission, expected to be launched this
week, will carry two astronauts into orbit for five days, during
which their physical reactions will be closely monitored.
"If it were an unmanned spaceship or recoverable satellite, we
might have put experimental things on it," said Liu, whose
department selects seeds for outer space experimentation and
allocates them to breeding nurseries after they are brought
back.
"An unmanned spaceship and a recoverable satellite could have a
relatively looser security demand and could expose seeds to more
cosmic radiation to cause a useful mutation," he said.
"But as a manned capsule, the Shenzhou VI has a different
structure to block radiation as much as possible, and strict
measures are being taken to ensure its security."
Liu had obtained evidence from other sources but refused to
identify them, saying only: "China's style is to focus on one thing
at a time."
He also denied that the absence of seeds is due to limited space
on the capsule.
Since 1987, China has been keen on sending plant seeds about 200
to 400 kilometers above the earth to study genetic mutations and
changes.
A variety of seeds, including corn, lotus and watermelon, have
traveled in space for up to two weeks in recoverable satellites or
high-altitude balloons.
The high radiation in space-mutated, or genetically-modified,
seeds' DNA, may explain why peonies grown from "space seeds" are
larger and more colorful than normal. The mutations may also
explain jumbo bell peppers and fast-growing rice.
In the past five years, the Center for Space Breeding developed
12 rice and wheat variants that greatly increased grain output,
according to a statement released last month by the center.
(China Daily October 11, 2005)
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