I feel privileged to have witnessed history being made
In my time as a reporter, I have met and interviewed many people. I don’t become emotional easily. However, every time I witness, either on a screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center or on TV at home, Chinese astronauts salute as the rocket carrying them thunders away from the launchpad and flies toward the skies, I feel my heart beat faster and my eyes begin to moisten.
This is partly a result of empathy — the sight of the astronauts soaring off into outer space imparts the illusion that I am setting off on a celestial expedition with them — and partly because I know that these men and women are about to brave countless risks to explore a littleknown part of the universe for the benefit of all mankind.
When the late Neil Armstrong uttered the bestknown phrase of his life — “That’s one small step for
(a) man, one giant leap for mankind” — as he set foot on the Moon, he was enshrined in the history of both the world and the United States simultaneously. The achievements of Armstrong, and his fellow Apollo 11 astronauts, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, during their mission in 1969 inspired generations to embark on explorations of their own.
Similarly, when Yang Liwei, a former fighter jet pilot, displayed the flags of China and the United Nations together during the Shenzhou V mission in 2003 and wrote, “For peace and the progress of the human race, the Chinese came to outer space”, he was enshrined in the history of China as the person who fulfilled the nation’s 1,000-year-old dream of “flying to the heavens”. The then38-year-old’s mission also symbolized China’s rise as a 21st century global power.
In the years that followed, I saw Zhai Zhigang floating out of his spacecraft and waving a Chinese flag among the stars; Jing Haipeng entering China’s first space lab; and Wang Yaping demonstrating the beauty of physics to 60 million students during a lecture conducted far outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
The 11 Chinese who have been to space became national heroes and heroines, the focus of attention on TV and the front pages of every newspaper. Every time they made speeches at schools, government compounds, communities, military barracks or public rallies, numerous people flocked around them to ask for autographs or permission for a group photo.
However, behind the flowers and honorary titles, few people realize how hard they trained and how much they owed their families.
Among the 14 people who trained to become the country’s first generation of astronauts, six never made it into space. Most of them have now retired from active service and have transferred to support posts at the Astronaut Center of China.
Those six people spent nearly 20 years in regular training to ensure that they would be ready if the country called upon them, knowing that their chances of taking part in a mission were becoming slimmer every day as they aged.
However, those unsung heroes have no regrets, saying: “We have honored our pledge.”
We should never forget their names: Deng Qingming, Li Qinglong, Wu Jie, Chen Quan, Zhao Chuandong and Pan Zhanchun.
I have written more than 1,000 stories for China Daily. Though journalism has been called “the first rough draft of history”, I understand that most of my stories will leave no trace in history because in this era of “information explosion”, hundreds of words in a newspaper are just a flash in the pan.
But I still feel privileged because I have been able to capture some of the most memorable moments of our time — such as those Chinese astronauts saluting in their soaring rockets — and then relate them to the world.