China launches 1st space station module - Boston Globe

In terms of technology, the launch of the Tiangong-1 places China about where the United States was in the 1960s, during the Gemini program. While China is planning fewer launches than the United States carried out, the Chinese program progresses farther than the United States did with each launch it undertakes, said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island.