The Space Race

Russian officials arrested a top rocket scientist in their space program for selling secrets to the Chinese. Now the Chinese have both Russian and American rocket technology to work from.

On the same note, I read recently that the Russians have a new space vehicle in the works. It looks like a mini-space shuttle. It will be bigger than the soyuz, but smaller than the shuttle. It isn't designed to ferry anything large, unlike the shuttle, but is designed to carry many cosmo/astronauts into space. It will be returned to earth via a runway landing, unlike any of their previous spacecraft, with parachutes in case of an emergency. Traditionally, Russian spacecraft have always used retro-rockets to land.