The countdown to the launch of Shenzhou VI was in its final hour at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province.
Sitting in the seat reserved for the spacecraft system's command-in-chief, Shang Zhi looked calm and confident.
That's in stark contrast to the numerous hardships in the past two years that Shang, 42, went through to assure a safe mission for Shenzhou VI.
In January 2004, as the fever for the successful launch of Shenzhou V was still lingering in China, Shang succeeded to the post of spacecraft system command-in-chief quietly.
To Shang, the glory of the Shenzhou V mission was gone, and what lay ahead was the challenges and difficulties for the research of Shenzhou VI.
The new craft would be different from Shenzhou V's in several ways. It would carry two astronauts instead of one. It would fly for more than one day, and for the first time, the astronauts would work and live in the orbiting module.
Rather than simply being a "bigger Shenzhou V," Shenzhou VI was meant to have a more sophisticated system and better quality by utilizing improved technology. That was the pressure on Shang's shoulders.
Troubles came soon after he took this job. Metal cables on the bottom of the return module were found to be green. After careful checks and analyses, Shang and his colleagues discovered that the suppliers mistakenly used zinc plating instead of gold. Without the cables there would be no way to install the equipment in the module, and the whole program would have to be held back.
Shang placed an urgent order for new cables. But they turned out to have the same problem, indicating that the supplier had some flaws in its production methods. After careful consideration, Shang urged staff to search worldwide for proper cables.
This was just one of the many thorny issues, but building a good spacecraft was not only about technical challenges. The friction of minds and wills was sometimes even more difficult.
Some young researchers exchanged work shifts in private in order to be able to book train tickets to their hometowns a few days earlier for Spring Festival in February.
But Shang ordered them to return their tickets and stay until all jobs were done as scheduled. Many came to him to complain or lobby, some in tears. But Shang stood firm, believing that team morale and the quality of the work were at stake. He persuaded everyone to stay.
In the final days before the Lunar New Year, the scheduled tasks were finished. Shang arranged for the team to get plane tickets home, rather than train tickets, and he gave each family a gift as well.
One with a stone heart may not be a real hero, an old Chinese saying goes.
Now the whole country is rapturous over Shenzhou VI's success, but Shang remains calm. He said what he wanted most was to go to a quiet place for a couple of days.
But he has not gone not now. The next spacecraft needs to be built. And it is Shang's hope that the Shenzhou series, the "divine ships," will carry the dreams of a nation on far-away explorations.
(China Daily October 14, 2005)
