​One month after the launch of China’s second space lab Tiangong-2 into space, China successfully launched its manned spacecraft Shenzhou-11 on October 17, taking two Chinese astronauts to Tiangong-2, as they are expected to carry out research and push even further into the great beyond, achieving what China’s greatest scientists, philosophers and poets could only dream about for thousands of years previously.

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​Some hundred miles from the Jiuqian Satellite Launch Center in the remote desert region of northwestern China are the incredible Mogao Caves, where numerous Buddhist frescos are painted on the rock walls of nearly 500 grottoes over ten dynasties from the 4th to the 14th century, close to the ancient Silk Road city of Dunhuang. Over thousands of years, ten dynasties rose and fell, but artists took their imaginations beyond the simplistic realm of men on Earth, as they left their interpretations of a nation's desire to explore the great unknown beyond the clouds and the stars. 

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​The famous frescoes depicting apsaras, or celestial beings, can be found in nearly all of the Mogao Caves. The exquisite depictions of these goddesses dancing and flying in the sky embody ancient China’s early fascination with space, and a cultural yearning to get closer to the heavenly world above.

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​Legends familiar to all Chinese people such as Chang’e flying to the moon, Kuafu chasing and capturing the sun, and Nüwa mending the sky, all reveal a curiosity about space that has been passed on by generation after generation for thousands of years.

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​Qu Yuan, one of China’s most lauded poets, who was writing some 2000 years ago, famously raised 174 questions about the sky, the Earth, and nature in his prose poem “Asking Heaven” (Tian Wen), regarded as one of the most accomplished works in ancient Chinese literature. “Asking Heaven” shows that even millennia ago, some of China’s greatest thinkers were contemplating the great beyond, as they looked to the unattainable heavens above.

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​Yuri Gagarin may be famous for being the first man in space, but in fact it was a Chinese man who first tried to turn humanity’s dream of exploring space into a reality. During the middle of the Ming Dynasty at the turn of the 16th century, a Chinese stargazer named Wan Hu set out to make himself the world’s first astronaut. Centuries before the Wright Brothers took to the air, Wan built his "spacecraft" using a sturdy chair, two kites and 47 huge gunpowder-filled rockets. Wan apparently lost his life with a big bang – disappearing in a puff of smoke after lighting the fuse on his rockets. Centuries later, a crater on the Moon’s far side was named after him, a man from China who dared to dream, and dared to pursue those dreams – all by reaching out to the heavens to achieve the impossible.

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​We now know that space exploration is very much possible, thanks to the dedication of men and women like Wan Hu. Five hundred years later in 2003, China finally sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space, and was the third country to do so after the US and Russia, turning the centuries-old dream of Wan Hu as well as that of generations of Chinese people into a reality. 

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​Since Yang Liwei made history, a total of 12 Chinese astronauts have gone into space, including Liu Yang, who became the first Chinese woman in orbit on Shenzhou-9 in 2012. 

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​Shenzhou-11, which carried two more astronauts into orbit, will see its crew remain in the Tiangong-2 space lab for one month, during which they will be carrying out experiments related to medicine, physics and biology, in China’s longest mission since its manned space flight program was launched over 20 years ago. 

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​Starting from scratch, China's ever-expanding manned space program is increasingly becoming a source of national pride, as the country steps further and further into space, advancing on a historic and cultural “space dream” built on unwavering determination, technological expertise and a fascination with the great beyond, that goes back as far as the Chinese civilization itself. 

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