Not many images can compare with the blast-off of the mannedspacecraft for summing up a nation's economic and scientific capabilities, which is why so much is riding on this mission's success and why Chinese will be watching and waiting for the Shenzhou VI to touch down safely on the grasslands of inner Mongolia.
Given a limited and fluctuating budget, the NASA administrator and his Soviet counterpart ( Sergei Korolev?) had to recruit and train astronauts, design spacecraft, and assign manned and unmanned missions.
So Russia has since turned its focus on China, which made its first successful manned flight in 2003 aboard the Shenzhou spacecraft and plans to put a capsule on the moon in 2013.
Before leaving the space station, the Progress 47 spacecraft conducted a test of an upgraded docking system that Russia intends to use on future unmanned Progress and manned Soyuz vehicles.