Manned spaceflight

Chapter 1 described the current stage of Chinese piloted spaceflight: the building of a basic space station. Tiangong was the culmination of a 20-year program of manned spaceflight, though one which had its roots in a precursor program as far back as the 1970s. This chapter narrates the precursor missions before manned flight (Shenzhou 1-4), the first manned flight (Shenzhou 5), the week-long flight of two astronauts (Shenzhou 6), and the first Chinese spaceflight by a three-man crew with the space walk by Zhai Zhigang (Shenzhou 7). These missions made China definitively the third spacefaring nation in the world.

ORIGINS: PROJECT 714

Like everyone else, the Chinese were greatly impressed with Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight into space on 12th April 1961, which spurred the Academy of Sciences into holding a series of symposia starting that summer. Twelve meetings were held between then and 1964, organized by Tsien Hsue Shen. Their purpose was to keep in touch with developments abroad and discuss how a manned and deep-space exploration program could best be organized in the distant future. Tsien’s book, An Introduction to Interplanetary Flight (1963, Science Press, Beijing), the basis for instruction of all engineers in the space program, included a chapter on manned spaceflight. So the idea of a manned flight was there from the very beginning.

China followed the Soviet practice of making vertical flights with biological cargoes and animals (the first dogs flew into the upper atmosphere from Russia in July 1951). China first fired a biological container 70 km high on the T-7AS-1 sounding rocket on 19th July 1964, with a complement of four white rats, four white mice, and 12 biological test tubes with fruit flies and other test items, their behavior and reactions followed by a camera. Two further missions flew on 1st and 5th June 1965. The rocket was then adapted as the T-7AS-2 to take dogs and fly to an altitude of up to 115 km. The carrying of a dog required a much more advanced life-support system, but, as a precaution against a delayed recovery, arrangements were made for a pressure valve to be released during the descent to let in fresh air. During the flight, the dog’s heartbeat, temperature, respiration, and breathing rates would be

China’s first space dog, Xiao Bao, who flew on a sounding rocket.

measured by a tape recorder and radiation dosage measured. The first mission duly took place on 15th July 1966, with China’s first space dog, Xiao Bao (“little leopard” in Chinese). An Air Force helicopter crew spotted the descending cabin and a happy, tail-wagging dog was quickly retrieved. A bitch, Shan Shan (“coral” in Chinese), followed on 28th July. Plans were under way to fly a monkey that September, but the cultural revolution intervened and the mission did not take place.

A conference of scientists, engineers, and political leaders held on 4th March 1966 laid down the broad lines of future space development, especially the artificial satellite project (project 651, Chapter 2) and proposals for a recoverable satellite (project 911, Chapter 4). We now know that there was also a closed session in which the idea of a manned spacecraft was discussed at the Jingxi Hotel, parallel to the main space conference. The National Defence Science Committee COSTIND (see Chapter 3) formed a three-strong committee to develop the concept. The committee spent 20 days working out the aims, objectives, and methods of a Chinese manned flight, after which it filed a 20-page report. It was decided that, if the recoverable satellite project went well, a manned program would follow and was assigned the name of Shuguang, or “dawn” – a title decided in January 1968.

In April 1968, the government took a decisive step by setting up the Institute of

The manned version of the FSW recoverable cabin, the Shuguang, showing where the astronaut would sit. Courtesy: Mark Wade.

Space Medicine in north-west Beijing (originally it was called the Space Medicine Project Research Institute and it has also been identified as the Research Centre into Physiological Reactions in Space and Institute of Medical Engineering in Space) and Tsien Hsue Shen was made the first assistant director. The center was equipped with acceleration chairs, pressure chambers, centrifuges, and revolving chairs. The institute was to remain permanently in existence, despite the subsequent ups and downs of the manned program. Its continued operation was one of the main reasons why Chinese denials concerning a manned space program were never entirely convincing.

Tsien Hsue Shen asked COSTIND and the Air Force to recruit China’s first group of astronauts to train to fly the first manned mission. They followed the Soviet practice of recruiting from young Air Force pilots with a perfect medical record, rated on their psychological stability and ability to act calmly under pressure. Selection began on 5th October 1970. A thousand pilots were sent to the new Institute of Space Medicine for screening. Like their Russian counterparts, they were not initially told the real purpose of the tests, although they guessed soon enough, especially when they were flown on weightless trajectories in specially adapted aircraft. When they were shown films about Soviet manned spaceflight, they knew for certain. Their numbers were whittled down from 88 to 20 on 15th March 1971. China thus became the third country in the world to select an astronaut squad. The process was so secret that no one, apart from those immediately involved, knew about this at the time or for another 30 years. In the event, one of the 20 left almost immediately but we do know the names of the 19 others (Table 8.1). They reported for duty on 13 th May 1971.

All were bom over the years 1934 (the same as Yuri Gagarin) to 1948. They were all pilots and some had risen to the ranks of squadron or divisional commander. Most were Chinese MiG pilots and some had shot down American planes over

The first group of yuhangyuan in training, 1971

Vietnam or American drones over China itself. The final squad of 19 was called “project 714”, after the year and month that confirmed their selection (April 1971), and the term seems to have been eventually applied to the whole project. Project 714 was assigned 500 support workers, from supervisors to trainers and guards. It was intended that the first flight would take place at the end of 1973. Instructors were brought in from the universities in such subjects as physics, sciences, rocketry, and English. A British Trident aircraft was obtained from China’s civilian airline, CAAC, for weightlessness training.

Shuguang was approved by Chairman Mao on 14th July 1970 and guided by his defense minister Lin Biao. No sooner than had their training got under way than the project was affected by a bizarre political crisis, though not one atypical of the cultural revolution. On 13th September 1971, Minister of Defence Lin Biao died when his jet crashed in Mongolia after what was seen at the time as a failed coup attempt. By sheer chance, Lin Biao’s plotters had used the same code number, “project 714”, as the signal for the coup and, in the paranoid atmosphere, the spaceflight project came under suspicion. There were further difficulties. Because the

project was a secret one, they found it difficult to commandeer resources. The initial equipment of the squad comprised only one car and one telephone. Budgets were underestimated and they had difficulty getting flying time from the Air Force. Conditions were difficult, but they had the benefit of classes from no less a person than Tsien Hsue Shen himself. The following spring, Mao Zedong declared that Earthly needs must come first. The 19 astronauts returned to their Air Force units and, on 13th May 1972, the last standing staff member of project 714 left the office and turned out the lights. The furthest it got was building a wood and cardboard spacecraft mockup and preparing some space food in toothpaste tubes.

Granted that the first successful recoverable mission flew in 1975, the earliest a manned Chinese spaceflight could have taken place would have been the late 1970s. The FSW would have been a tight fit for an astronaut – but it was actually bigger than the capsule in which John Glenn circled the Earth for America’s first orbital flight. The FSW-style of re-entry, a sudden, sharp, diving re-entry over Sichuan, would have given him a rough, but survivable, return to the Earth.

Even without a manned space program, the Institute of Space Medicine continued its work. It actually expanded to 60 technical staff who carried out work in space medicine, suits, food, and equipment. By way of a postscript to the project, as part of a medical test, the Institute for Space Medicine contacted all the members of the astronaut group 30 years later. All were still in good health and none had developed illnesses, such as cancer. Most now held high ranks in the Air Force. They had chosen well. In October 2009, it was revealed that China’s first astronaut would have been Fang Guojun, aged 33 at the time. He was photographed and interviewed in the Chinese press. He was allowed to break his vow of secrecy many years after the program itself was made public knowledge in 2001. Yang Liwei later responded to his congratulatory letter and acknowledged the work of his pioneer group. Chief designer of Shuguang was Tu Shancheng, bom in 1923 in Jiaxin, Zhejiang, later a graduate of Cornell University. After the project closed, he went on to the development of the first communications satellite, program 863, and the feasibility studies of what eventually became the first manned flight.