Yet for the first time in the nation's history, the idea of Chinese spaceflight is not something merely fictional for these students. China's manned space ambitions are right now at T-minus days - and counting. Sometime in the daylight hours in the next two weeks, from a remote pad in western Gansu Province, China will attempt to put a single astronaut into orbit for probably24 hours. The launch of a Shenzhou 5 capsule on top of a Long March 2F rocket is the next giant leap in a Chinese space program that, on paper, is every bit as ambitious as the US Apollo missions of the 1960s - with Beijing aiming later at a space station, the moon, and beyond.
If the Shenzhou 5 is successful, China enters an elite club of nations - including only the US and Russia - that has sent men and women into space.
The budding Chinese program is expected to galvanize national pride and unity. It also positions China to eventually develop a satellite and communications-based technology that is central to the kinds of military operations the US has been showcasing in Afghanistan and Iraq.***