Hu Shixiang, deputy chief commander of China's manned space program, said some of the women will embark on a space mission no later than 2010, working as flight commanders or on-board engineers, according to the China Daily.

The pool of candidates will be narrowed to four finalists during a process that will begin next year, said Hu, speaking at a reception for three visiting American astronauts.

China's first group of potential male astronauts were all former fighter pilots, chosen for their physical strength.

The country's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, who blasted off into space on China's maiden manned space flight in 2003, had years of piloting experience.

But as China's manned space program matures, the country will need people with strong science backgrounds capable of carrying out research in orbit, said Zhang Qingwei, president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.

In addition to female pilots, women specializing in medicine, biology and other disciplines will also have a chance to become astronauts, Zhang and Hu said.

"It is true women aviators have some advantages in terms of flight experience and physique, but we need payload experts with strong science and engineering background to do experiments in outer space," Hu was quoted as saying.

"The life support and environment control systems of our launch vehicles and spacecraft will allow average people, who are physically adequate and with some training, to fulfil space missions," Hu added.

Mae C. Jemison, one of the three visiting American astronauts and NASA's first black woman astronaut in 1987, said China's schedule to begin training women to go up in space by 2010 was not soon enough.

"China should have women astronauts as soon as possible, even earlier than next year, because you lose out on 50 percent of the talent that are available if you don't have women included," Jemison told the China Daily.

However, China's National Space Administration chief Sun Laiyan last year said China would not send women into space soon because it took time to train people and get them to reach a sufficient level of physical fitness.

China became only the third country in the world after the United States and the former Soviet Union to send a man into space when it launched its first manned mission in 2003.

China plans to launch its next manned space mission in early October with two astronauts circling the earth for five to six days.

A Soviet cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, became the first woman in space in 1963. The United States sent its first woman astronaut, Sally Ride, into space in 1983.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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