On the early morning of November 20, thousands of people were gathering around the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, holding their breath awaiting the launch of "Shenzhou", China's first experimental spaceship.

The carrier rocket, with the spacecraft on board, stood still at the 100-meter-plus launching pad. Four Chinese characters, meaning "China Aerospace", were borne on the white rocket, while the spacecraft was painted with two Chinese national flags on both sides.

Both the rocket and the spaceship are designed and manufactured by Chinese independently.

At 6:30 (Beijing Time), there came the order to ignite the rocket. The rocket roared, rocking the ground and unleashing huge flames, and shortly afterwards, blasted off into the sky, amid loud applause and cheers of the crowd.

Ten minutes later, the vehicle detached from the rocket and began its space voyage. As the spaceship gradually disappeared from the sight, celebrations were still going on at the launching site, with numerous fireworks cracking.

The successful launch of the Shenzhou has fulfilled a long- cherished dream of the Chinese people who, generation after generation, have been fancied by sky-flight stories. As early as 500 years ago, Chinese test-fired rockets into the sky in an attempt to realize the dream.

On April 12, 1961, the former Soviet Union astronaut Yuri Gagalin made the first space tour. Since then dozens of spacecraft have been sent into the space, some of them were manned.

Local scientists hailed the first spaceflight a historic breakthrough for China's space industry, noting that launching space vehicles needs the most sophisticated technology and is a comprehensive demonstration of a country's political, economic, scientific and technological strength.

China set up its space industry in the 1950s and since then, the Chinese have been able to send and recover satellites, launch several satellites with one rocket, fire rockets driven by high- performance and low-temperature fuel, master the technology of launching and monitoring earth-synchronous satellites, and cluster- rocket launching technology.

Meanwhile, China also has developed the capabilities of launching low-earth satellite, solar-synchronous satellite and earth-synchronous satellite, which have laid a solid foundation for the country to loft its spacecraft into orbit.

In 1992, China decided to jump-start the manned spacecraft program and thousands of Chinese scientists from hundreds of units have since been involved. Their hard work has resulted in today's success.

As a Chinese scientist puts it, "the Chinese people are capable of developing world-class technology independently and making greater contribution to the world's high technology industry and mankind."