Documentary Review Shaking the Heavens

Chen Yali and Eric Hagt

After 2 million yuan ($250,000) and two years of work, the Chinese Central Television Station released its 900-minute documentary on China’s space program in September 2005. Like the exploration of space itself, Shaking the Heavens is a fascinating odyssey into the history of China’s development in space. It weaves a gripping narrative of the triumphs and tribulations, the technological breakthroughs as well as launch failures throughout the evolution of China’s space effort. The documentary features numerous interviews with rocket scientists, satellite designers, aeronautics engineers, and policy-makers key to China’s space program, many of whom have never before appeared in the media.

Shaking the Heavens also disappoints, however, as it studiously avoids a number of issues critical to the shaping of China’s space development such as the relationship of civilian and military actors, military space capabilities and intentions, institutional restructuring and the future ambitions of the program. It offers not a word on the Cox Commission Report and surrounding events, which arguably did the most to define Sino-U.S. relations in space in the past decade. As it focuses on China’s launch capability development, it partly serves as an official booster for the China Academy for Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), China’s main rocket design and launch institute.

However, the documentary covers a number of important topics with a depth and comprehensiveness that go beyond propaganda. As the longest television series of its kind, it includes unprecedented coverage of debates within CALT, close-ups of early launch tests as well as launch failures, in which a number of scientists and workers lost their lives.

Spanning the history of China’s space program from its inception in the mid-1950s until the latest Shenzhou manned space mission, a number of salient themes emerge throughout the series. The first of these reveals how China’s space program, against considerable odds, was born. Tribute is duly paid to the pioneering space scientists, without their great self-sacrifice and deep patriotism -- not to mention a little help from the Soviets -- China’s space program would never have gotten off the ground.

Once the journey was begun, however, the space program would be deeply impacted by the economic and political forces throughout the 1950s-1980s. From the necessity of secrecy amidst strategic tensions with the U.S.S.R. and the United States, to the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, to the upheaval caused by transforming to a market-driven industry; all influenced the direction and nature of China’s space effort.

Another subject addressed in the series is the profound influence of China’s entrance into the international space launch market and its difficult interaction with the dominant player in space, the United States.

Finally, Shaking the Heavens captures the unique process of how China developed independently a fully indigenous capability in space. In light of the damage caused by the Cox Commission Report and China’s alleged attempts to steal sensitive technologies, this theme is particularly enlightening. It reveals the deserved reputation of Chinese aerospace scientists for achieving impressive technological breakthroughs through innovation and creativity with limited resources.

A Breed Apart

With the heady success of China’s second manned space mission, Shenzhou VI, China has entered the elite circle of space-faring powers. China can launch indigenously produced satellites into any orbit just as the United States and Russia. Yet, this documentary draws the distinct conclusion that China’s space program is indeed unique from its American and Russian counterparts, a fact that stems from its very different beginnings. Understanding how China’s program started is crucial to appreciating that uniqueness.

Before the People’s Republic of China entered the Korean War in the early 1950s, the country had been fighting for almost 20 years first against the Japanese and then in civil war, rendering China virtually devoid of industrial infrastructure. With only limited and short-lived assistance from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, China embarked on an autonomous path to develop its national defense industry under dire political and economic circumstances.

In the mid-1950s, a number of events led to the birth of China’s missile program. During this time the country’s survival was teetering under the strain of a feeble economy compounded by the heavy cost of the recently concluded Korean War. It was the deep patriotic fervor for the newly established republic that was the germinating seed to starting a missile program in 1957. As Wang Xiji, chief satellite designer explains, “the difficulties China then faced were profound. At that time, it was a question of whether or not the Chinese race would be extinguished. If the Chinese didn’t commit to making China strong, the country wouldn’t survive.”

Mao Tse-Tung’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1957 gave further impetus to China’s missile program. Mao was awed by Russian rocket technology, which he saw for the first time and that even moved him to quote from the classic, Dream of the Red Chamber, “either the East Wind (allusion to communism) will overwhelm the West Wind (capitalism), or the West Wind will overcome the East Wind.” Thus, China’s future missiles would take on the sobriquet that would hold significant meaning: ‘Dongfeng’ (East Wind) rocket series. At this time, Tsien Hsue-Shen fortuitously arrived in China to lead the fledgling program and would eventually earn the title, ‘Father of China’s rocket program.’ Tsien was a talented rocket scientist trained at CALTECH who had been deported from the United States in the maelstrom of the McCarthy witch hunts.

Humble Beginnings

The Fifth Institute of the Ministry of Defense took on the daunting task of building China’s missile industry from scratch. A total of 156 engineering graduates were recruited, none of whom had ever seen a rocket before. “It was mysterious to us,” says Liu Ximin, retired engineer of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry (MAI). “How could such a huge hunk of wingless steel fly?”

The U.S.S.R. provided assistance to China’s nascent missile program by accepting Chinese students to study in Moscow and sending 102 scientists to China in 1957. The Soviets also sent along two P-1 short-range, ground-to-ground missiles, which were only slightly more advanced than Nazi Germany’s V-1 rocket, the technical documentation for which China was made to pay weight-for-weight in gold. As Chen Zhenguan, a Chinese rocket engineer recounts, “We paid a kilo of gold for a kilo of documents. It was very expensive!” This first attempt at copying a missile, called Project 1059, came to naught as China’s engineering and technical standards were not sufficiently developed.

The documentary portrays China’s ideological mentors, the Soviets, as sincere in there desire to help China develop missiles. However, that assistance was limited to copying, and nothing more. “Russian experts would explain the design blueprints, but would never go into theoretical issues,” explains Wang Zhiren, rocket engine expert who had studied in Moscow. Yet, even that ended with the Sino-Soviet split in 1960, when all Russian personnel in China were suddenly recalled, taking all documents with them. This sent China’s missile program, and in fact its entire national defense industry, into a tailspin.

If the blow of the Sino-Soviet split was traumatic to China’s incipient rocket program, the political and economic events beginning in the late 1950s would prove to be an existential crisis. Wang Xiji tells us that under the grandiose ideals of the Great Leap Forward Movement, the launch vehicle program set unrealistic targets in sending rockets to space. “The program was completely disconnected with China’s industrial development stage at the time.” These goals were eventually scaled down, and China’s first sounding rocket, the TH-7, was launched to a height of eight kilometers. Nevertheless, hardships continued to define the program.

Many remarkable stories are revealed in this documentary testifying to the implausibly primitive conditions under which China’s missile program evolved. In 1960, when launch experiments began in the suburbs of Shanghai, rockets were hoisted using a well winch onto a modified launch pad made of water piping. Without any communication equipment, or even a loud speaker, launch orders were transmitted 100 meters away from the launch site to a command center by shouting or hand gestures through a line of people. Command and Control itself was merely bundles of dry hay, behind which the commanders would duck during launch to avoid being scorched by rocket heat and fire.

The success of the Soviet’s first astronaut mission into space in 1961 inspired China’s own space program. In 1964, China launched a rocket to a height of 70 kilometers carrying two lab mice and repeated the feat in 1966 by sending Xiaobao and Shanshan, two dogs, into space. With these initial successes, the Chinese dared to dream of its own manned space program.

Revolutionary Satellites

Since the 1950s, the capability to send satellites into space has symbolized the collective strength of a nation. Chinese scientists proposed a satellite development program in 1964. It was approved by the leadership in 1965 and formally established in 1966. Dubbed Project 651, it set the goal of producing a three-stage rocket to launch satellites into orbit by 1970. The three-stage rocket series would be named the ‘Chang Zheng’ (Long March) to commemorate the tortuous journey of the Chinese Red Army in 1938. But just as Project 651 got underway, China would soon descend into another ordeal of nationwide chaos in the form of the Cultural Revolution.

CALT, or the First Institute, was in charge of developing the Long March (LM) series of rockets.* However, progress was slow with project managers and engineers distracted by the mayhem of infighting between political factions in the Institute. Everyone was forced to attend endless political meetings. Zhou Enlai, then China’s premier, ordered a list of key researchers to be spared from “participating in revolution” during working hours. But not even Zhou could safeguard the Project and its people from all the excesses of that period. The production of crucial materials was often disrupted, even forcing scientists to make some parts on their own. Once, several rocket scientists were discovered building an explosive device by themselves and filling it with explosives using their own soup spoons.

Such constraints were minor compared to the intense political pressure the Project’s personnel felt. The nightmare for all scientists was the failure of a satellite launch. One story is told in the documentary of the great anxiety caused over how the first satellite to go up would transmit “The East is Red,” a song to laud the greatness of Chairman Mao. What if the song went out of tune? It might even be a humorous anecdote if it weren’t for the fact such a snafu would be politically dangerous for those involved. Chinese scientists even placed a self-destruct mechanism on-board the satellite in case anything went wrong. However, the launching of the first Long March rocket on Jan. 30, 1970 was a success.

More fundamental problems resulted in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, including a general inertia, lack of responsibility and quality control of workers. In one incident, a quality and systems check on a rocket revealed more than 30 waste items inside the launch vehicle including screwdrivers, screws and scraps of metal. This so-called ‘108 Incident’ led to a complete organizational overhaul to improve quality control under Gen. Zhang Aiping of the 7th Mechanic Division, which was responsible for most of the production of the launching vehicles.

Learning to Swim

China’s satellite communication program proceeded slowly in the 1970s, forcing China to spend exorbitant sums in renting foreign satellite services. As a result, China commenced Project 331 in the mid-1970s with the goal of sending satellites to geosynchronous orbit. However, China quickly discovered that its ambitions exceeded its capabilities.

China needed a more powerful launch vehicle. In 1964, Ren Xinmin, another rocket engine scientist, began to develop a liquid hydrogen and oxygen engine that was a process of two steps forward and one step back. The technology was available in open source Western publications, but gaining the exact know-how for an indigenously produced rocket largely became a matter of trial and error. The documentary chronicles a number of expensive failures both in treasure and lives. Experiments for this engine type were extremely dangerous due to the highly combustible materials involved. During the first experiment in 1978, a massive explosion injured 10 researchers, and two months later, a huge fire broke out. In 1984, however, the Long-March III (LM-3) was finally completed.

In 1984, on the second attempt, the new LM-3 successfully launched China’s first telecommunications satellite, the Dongfanghong-2 (East is Red) into geosynchronous orbit. For the first time China could send phone and TV signals to all places on its land and maritime territories, a capability the Americans had accomplished 20 years earlier. In the wake of these developments, China began construction of a more complete space infrastructure including the Xichang Satellite Launching Site, ground observation and control stations, sea-based observation ships, and large-scale observation and control centers.

Although the Chinese space program was making great strides, Deng Xiaoping clearly understood the existing technological gap with the world when, during his visit to the United States in 1976, he sat in an American lunar capsule. At the same time, the economic reform and opening-up of this period swept over every corner of China, including the space program. In the past, all budgets, all employee salaries, all infrastructure of the space sector came from government allocation. The space program would be increasingly weaned off its government funding in part because of financial limitations to support this increasingly bloated entity and in part to induce it to become self-sustaining.

The tide of market reform shifted the strategic goals of China’s space program from achievements based on symbolic political significance to practical economic results. Beginning in the 1980s, the space industry was forced to support itself and learn to survive in a market economy while the military industry was ordered to turn to civilian and commercial pursuits. It began a period of great upheaval for the space industry, creating both winners and losers. Hundreds of thousands of employees in China’s space industry who had devoted decades to the space program were suddenly swept away by the current of economic reform. Many were laid off, some became unemployed while others got rich, becoming the so-called ‘10,000 yuan households.’

Liu Jiyuan, former general manager of the China Aerospace Corporation noted, “Managers had to make a great effort to develop civilian products for the market, as the free housing was abolished and salaries and bonuses depended on their own means.”

These internal reforms and their attendant fiscal pressures on the space industry led to a new orientation toward the growing international space market. The transformation was inevitable but highly problematic for an entity reared in a closed and secretive environment. To be successful they would need to operate in a highly sophisticated global market. Several interviewees admitted that in the beginning they did not understand the laws and regulations governing the international launch business. They didn’t have the right channels or contacts to market products and didn’t even know how to write a bidding proposal. An agency to deal with foreign countries on space matters hadn’t yet been set up.

In 1982, Chinese delegates made their first international trip to Geneva to attend a U.N. meeting on the peaceful use of the outer space, but the four participants were under instructions only to listen. Chinese delegates gave a brief report on the feasibility of providing space launch service to the world. The following year, the China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) was established, to provide a platform to represent China’s launch services in the international market. It fully committed to globally competing in space with a decision in 1986 by the Chinese leadership to begin opening up their space industry.

However, China’s competitive position internationally remained precarious for some time. In 1989, China won just a single bid in commercial launch compared to three for the United States and nine for France. Huang Zuoyi, director of the CGWIC’s North American office, recalls the desperation of those times:“They even considered shooting vessels with crematory remains into the outer space for Westerners.” Struggling to gain a position in the international market China met many obstacles, not the least of which was an unreceptive American attitude.

Good American, Bad American

As the leading space power of the world, U.S. actions often influenced China’s own ambitions in space. Such motivators came in both negative and positive ways. When reminiscing about how they came to devote their careers to China’s space program, many of the first-generation scientists cited the Korean War. The show of American air power with the bombing of the China-North Korean border instilled a sense of fear of what lay in store for China without air power. This prompted many to join China’s nascent air force, out of which evolved an aeronautics and space program.

On a more positive note, when President Richard Nixon, on his 1972 trip to China, brought as a gift a mobile communications satellite station, it was the first of its kind the Chinese had seen and was deeply appreciated by China’s scientists and leaders. It revealed to China for the first time the great potential of communications satellites both for China’s own domestic needs and integrating with the modern world.

By and large, however, the relationship was a rocky one. Those in China’s space industry recount many bitter memories about what they felt was American arrogance. “At that time, for a developing country such as China to sell high-tech products to a rich and developed country like the United States was an extremely difficult process,” said He Kerang, former deputy director of CALT. At the beginning, when China tried to market its launch services, one American unabashedly asked for one million dollars for just talking to the Chinese, on the grounds that the meeting was more of training session than a consultation. One universal lesson of the Chinese space industry experts interviewed was that Americans admire authority. “If you are not at the same level of technological know-how, the Americans won’t take interest in you.”

Yet, as the European regulations only allowed launch services by EU states, that market was off limits and thus China understood that to achieve a legitimate position in international space arena, it had to engage the United States.

Practical challenges were often intertwined with politics. Huang Zuoyi describes the suspicion by Western companies regarding the origin of China’s early rocket technology.

Also, according to the documentary, the American embassy in Beijing attempted to dissuade the Chinese space industry from entering the international launch business in 1985, for reasons concerning nonproliferation. Tang Jinan, former general manager of the CGWIC, said in an interview that after they had convinced Balapa Satellite Company of Indonesia to sign a launch contract and even got the blessing of the former president, Suharto, the deal was apparently axed because the United States threatened to subtract an amount of aid to Indonesia equal to the launch services provided by China.

Yet, in 1987, China signed the first launch contract with a small American satellite company. Others followed in 1988 with contracts between CGWIC’s and the Hughes Corporation and a second to launch the AsiaSat I for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company.

Though the experience of dealing with Americans was often scarred by bitter memories, Shaking the Heavens pays due tribute to the overall positive influence of the United States on China’s space development. One scientist notes the sometimes tough but necessary lessons learned. For instance, were it not for the Americans, China’s launch facilities might still have no emergency escape system. At the launch of AsiaSat I, upon discovering the Chinese had no escape facility, the American technicians refused to climb up the launch structure.

Painful First Steps

On Feb. 12, 1990, the American satellite AsiaSat 1 arrived in Xichang with 18 U.S. guards providing 24-hour supervision. AsiaSat 1 would be China’s first launch of a foreign satellite and the date was set for April 7 of the same year. It was also a first attempt at a joint project using a Chinese rocket and American satellite, one that proved to be hard-won, with a degree of acrimony between the two sides.

First, a hard and fast deadline was set to accommodate the many invited guests that would view the launch, and CALT was to pay $100,000 for each day the launch was delayed.

Also, U.S. demands that it retain exclusive access to the satellite during preparations led to much internal debate amongst the Chinese space leadership, recalls Liu Sunyun, a prominent rocket scientist. “Some believed that China was selling its sovereignty.” A degree of tension pervaded the atmosphere throughout the project as both sides kept information on capabilities and technology to themselves, making cooperation difficult. The documentary explains that from the Chinese perspective, its rocket program was institutionally secretive as it was entirely developed indigenously and had been closed to outside observers since its inception. However, the Chinese rocket had to be refitted to launch an American-made satellite and so communication and exchange was necessary.

Meanwhile, the Chinese had great difficulty in acquiring the know-how for implementing international technical standards as the U.S. government put up many barriers to providing these to the Chinese.

Despite these obstacles, the LM-3 was prepared in time for launch on April 7. An engineer recounts the day as one filled with trepidation for all. It was the rainy season in Xichang, Sichuan Province, where the launch site was located. However, bad weather and a sharp drop in temperature produced a coating of frost around the rocket as it was being fueled. The rocket began to shake and Chinese engineers worried that the environment would degrade the strength of some metal parts and cause the rocket to fall apart. In a remarkable feat of ingenuity, the day was saved as dozens of cotton blankets were wrapped around the rocket by hand. AsiaSat 1 was launched successfully.

More problems lay ahead however with the unsuccessful launch of Australia’s Hughes 601 satellite in 1992. This satellite was to be launched on China’s untested LM-2E rocket. Under the contract, the LM-2E would have to have a successful launch by 1990. As China’s first launch vehicle with four strap-on boosters, numerous technical hurdles and multiple ground tests had to be overcome. But CALT didn’t even have the financial means to test and manufacture this proposed missile. Liu Jiyuan recalls, “If we cannot get the funding [through allocation], we will get it through loans.” CALT ended up borrowing several hundred million renminbi from the Chinese bank for the project.

CALT was faced with the monumental task of overcoming innumerable technical hurdles, producing hundreds of thousands of parts, and completing more than 300 ground tests in 18 months that would normally take more than six years. Liang Ziheng explains how CALT met the challenge by creating a new work method called “blooming all over” (遍地开花). “When a scientist came out with the preliminary conditions, the designers would draw the blueprint while the factory would already start preparations for production and the test site would begin readying for the test.”

If this wasn’t onerous enough, China also needed to construct a larger launch site to accommodate the new rocket. Thousands of people labored during the wintry days of 1989-1990 in the hinterland of Xichang to complete this project in time. After a mere 18 months, the 97-meter-high launch structure was erected and tested with the first strap-on rocket.

On March 22, 1992, after more than 300 ground tests, the real launch of the Australian Optus B1 Satellite was ready to go with live broadcast in China on CCTV. But hundreds of millions of Chinese would be stunned as the rocket caught fire and threatened to explode the launch vehicle, its payload and the launch pad. Catastrophe was narrowly averted as the emergency control system shut down the main engines and the satellite was safely removed. The cause of malfunction turned out to be a piece of aluminum scrap in the program distributor.

A new LM-2E was produced in 100 days and successfully launched the Australian satellite. Ironically, the satellite was sent into orbital position within four kilometers of its intended target, making it the most accurate launch of a Hughes satellite in history, according to the documentary.

China’s LM-2E rocket continued to be plagued with problems between 1990 and 1995, with two of its seven launches resulting in explosions. Lack of integration between launch vehicle and payload and cooling were found to be the primary issues.

Secrecy and Hardship

In the summer of 1988, experts of Hughes and the Australian Satellite Communication Corporation were taken to a mysterious site at Mount Qinling in Shaanxi Province. To their utter disbelief, the Australian and American guests were informed by their Chinese hosts that this village, indistinguishable from others, was a rocket engine production base. People who looked like farmers were introduced as China’s top rocket engine designers.

Base 067, as the place was called, illustrates the secrecy of China’s space program during that period and the effect it had on China’s early space program. The difficulties of primitive living conditions for high-level personnel in the program and the remoteness of location posed significant obstacles in producing highly sophisticated technology.

Li Lin, propaganda officer at Base 067, notes the hardships that resulted from the level of secrecy. Located in several isolated valleys, the base was so secluded that rocket engineer scientists were forced to grow vegetables themselves and live in makeshift shacks made of mud and bamboo. Zhang Guitian, chief rocket engine designer, recalls in the documentary, “In the early days we cooked over fire using wood that we either bought from farmers or gathered ourselves in the mountains. We steamed bread ourselves and had little rice…the corn flour we ate always had a moldy smell.”

Zhang Baokun, deputy chief rocket designer tells us, “Every time we went to Beijing for business, each of us would carry 30 bags of supplies. Because we didn’t have rice, meat or even enough cooking oil. The biggest difficulty then was the inconvenience of communication and transportation. We couldn’t make a direct phone call to Beijing. If one had to call, he had to register a number with the operator’s office and then return hours later when the operator notified him it was ready.”

Zhang Guitian also recalls the numerous floods in the area. “One major flood washed away our houses and base facilities. Space experts there, together with their families, became refugees taking shelters in the mountains and lived on the food dropped from helicopters.”

Going it Alone on Little

A culture of secrecy, however, was one of the by-products of a program forced to develop without outside cooperation. As the Chinese invariably ran up against numerous technical difficulties, their appeals for outside assistance were often rebuffed. Xiao Yun, chief designer of the Long March 2F rocket, recalls that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was willing to jointly work with China in technology, but when it came to core technology, the Russians refused to cooperate. In one instance, the Chinese requested an evaluation of their indigenously designed launch vehicle fault detection and escape system, for which Russia demanded a shockingly high price of $10 million.

A conclusion drawn by those interviewed in the documentary is that no country wants to cultivate a competitor. In order to survive, the Chinese space program had to depend almost entirely on its own technological ability and know-how.

Before 1983, China had no supercomputers, Ni Jiamin, a space technician, tells us. The machines then didn’t even have the computing power of a Microsoft 286. “Chinese rocket scientists had to do calculations using small machines to solve big problems.” That is, they simplified computations by reducing them by orders of magnitude.

The limitations of China’s resources drove many early debates over the space program. In early the 1990s, when economic development really kicked into full gear, a great internal discussion was initiated amongst key agencies over the critical question of whether and how China should invest in space. Many Chinese scientists were skeptical of manned space due to the lessons garnered from the competition between the United States and the Soviets in the 1970s. Qi Faren, chief designer of Shenzhou V, explains, “The two superpowers were racing against each other and were investing too much money in their manned space programs. At that time, Chinese scientists wondered whether we should also begin preparations in [manned space].” From of this debate, China’s manned space program was born and named Project 714 to reflect the date the decision was made, April 1971. However, a lack of concrete results and limited economic resources conspired to put China’s first manned space initiative on hold.

It wasn’t until 1992 when China successfully launched the LM-2E, and when China’s economic reform made significant progress, that China rethought its manned space ambition. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn’t discuss the importance of the mood of uncertainty many were feeling in the early 1990s about the country’s future and its relevance to the decision on pushing full speed ahead with manned space program. The project was a political opportunity to revive the pride and spirit of ordinary Chinese, in addition to other potential benefits. Coded Project 921, support for the program grew and the government even promised to use China’s gold reserves to finance it if need be. Ambitious targets were set for the project to ensure major technical breakthroughs by the year 1998 and a manned flight into space by 1999.

Numerous difficulties slowed progress however. For instance, scientists recall how seemingly simply items such as the astronaut’s seat took almost 10 years to design. A serious explosion occurred during testing of the rocket engine. By 1997, the spacecraft remained merely a prototype in the workshop and it was clear that the goal of sending China’s first manned space craft by 1999 would not be realized. The shadow of failure hung over Project 714.

Qing Wenbo, deputy commander of space vehicle systems, recounts, “If such delays continued, our design and development team wouldn’t be sustained and we would see our research funding would be reduced or even cut off. In order to keep the project going, we only had one choice: to conduct an unmanned flight test before the deadline, even though the engine system was untested.” He worried that if they couldn’t meet the goal, the whole project would be in jeopardy. It was clear at the time that as went the progress of Project 714, so went the future funding for manned space. In order to make the deadline, the development team decided to take the unconventional step of doing testing and production simultaneously. Also, the prototype shuttle in the workshop was directly turned into the actual test spacecraft that would be launched into space. All electronic and mechanic parts that were originally used for ground testing were converted for use in the real space shuttle. On Nov. 21 1999, the first test was successfully launched, cementing the political confidence in China’s young manned space program.

As China’s manned space program is discussed in the final two episodes of the documentary, one is struck less by the content covered than by those telling the story. The majority of those interviewed are in their early- to mid-30s and speak in the idiom of technical jargon rather than high-minded patriotism and self-sacrifice. Liu Jiyuan, formerly the vice minister of the Aerospace Industry and the vice president of CAST, accurately sums up a core rationale for China’s space program. “First, it is feasible from a technical point of view and second, such daunting challenge is requisite to developing talent.”

The fact that this documentary was made attests to the successes of China’s space effort. In that way, Shaking the Heavens has given an honest if less than comprehensive picture of the difficult political and economic circumstances out of which that program came to be. However, the vision of the new generation of technological sophisticates now leading China’s space initiative points to an ambitious and promising future. Understanding what lies in store for China’s space program will hopefully be the sequel to this fascinating documentary.