China space post office sends mail from orbit

China may not have been the first to send an astronaut to the moon, but it could have beaten the United States in terms of postal service gimmicks.

 

Tech site CNET reported China's Space Post Office in Beijing will route letters through a computer aboard the Chinese spacecraft Tiangong 1.

 

CNET said the computer will route the message back to the main Space Post Office to be printed out and placed in a commemorative envelope with a special postmark, then sent on to its addressee.

 

"Any parcels which go on China's spacecraft will be sent from here," CNET's sister site Smartplanet quoted a Space Post Office clerk as saying.

 

But the clerk said they are not quite ready to offer space mail service to the public. "We can send mail anywhere in the world but not into space."

 

The report said the program opened last month and seeks to boost business for China's postal service, which is losing ground to electronic mail as people move online.

 

It opened in November with a direct connection to space, a "virtual" branch on the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft 343 kilometers above Earth.

 

On the other hand, the Space Post Office is also selling souvenirs, stamps to the occasional astronaut, or e-mail wedding vows to space. — TJD, GMA News