Ground Control to Major Wong

If you’re Chinese and you want to be an astronaut, be prepared to meet 100 newly released health requirements.  This is a very big deal in China, they put their first person into space in 2003 and had their first spacewalk last year.  Only the best will do and here’s just a few items on the list:

• No scars
• No history of serious illness in the last three generations of your family
• No cavities
• No runny noses
• No ringworm
• No drug allergies
• No bad breath

I haven’t seen the whole list, but the wife thing is the clincher.  Aspiring “taikonauts” can’t rocket off to the stars without marital approval.  Wives of the men with the supposed “Right Stuff” get the final say under the new rules.  If a would-be astronaut’s spouse does not like the idea of them going into space they must remain on earth.

Aside from passing the demanding physical tests, the candidate must also possess a pleasant and adaptable disposition.  Shi Bing Bing, a doctor at the 454th Air Force Hospital in Nanjing, eastern China, said the new rules will help China send the best of the best into space.

I don’t know what’s wrong with doing what we did fifty plus years ago– round up some Navy and Air Force test pilots and shoot ‘em into space.