Hours after declaring its first manned space mission a success, a triumphant China said Thursday it wants eventually to send up a permanently inhabited space station.

The station will follow further flights of Shenzhou space capsules meant to develop spacewalking and orbital docking skills, space program officials said at a news conference. They said the next Shenzhou should be launched by 2005.

The officials didn't say when a space station might be launched or give any details of its operation.

``The maiden manned spaceflight is the first step of China's space program,'' said Xie Mingbao, director of the China Manned Space Program Engineering Office. The next stage, he said, would be a space lab that can support a crew for limited periods.

``The third step is to develop a space station according to demand and solve the problems related to the application of a manned space station,'' Xie said.

The announcement, vague as it was, came as a striking change from the usual secrecy of China's military-linked manned space program. It clearly was prompted by the success of the 21-hour flight of Shenzhou 5, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei four hours earlier.

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While I'm very happy for them in their recent success, I wish they'd consider adding to the already present international space station.