Chinese women in space Chinese women in space In 2012, China became the third nation to send women into space with its own space program, after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States, 49 years after the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova. Following the successful piloted flight of "Shenzhou 5" in October 2003, China announced plans to send a woman into space as well. Gu Xiulian, president of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), told a gathering that she proposed that women, too, should be trained for space missions after China's first piloted space trip. Initially, the criteria for women to be selected, included having
Woman in the Dunes filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Roger Ebert inducted "Woman in the Dunes" into his Great Movies list in 1998. Viewing the work as a retelling of the Sisyphus myth, he wrote, "There has never been sand photography like this (no, not even in "Lawrence of Arabia"), and by anchoring the story so firmly in this tangible physical reality, the cinematographer, Hiroshi Segawa, helps the director pull off the difficult feat of telling a parable as if it is really happening." Strictly Film School describes it as "a spare and haunting allegory for human existence". According to Max Tessier, the main theme of