China's Spacewalking Astronaut Hailed as Hero

Sept. 29, 2008 -- The first Chinese man to walk in space was hailed as a national hero Monday, as the emerging space power gave one of its clearest indications yet that it is now reaching for the moon.

Mission commander Zhai Zhigang, 41, and his two fellow astronauts arrived in Beijing to mass-circulation papers filled with praise for their historic 68-hour voyage on board the Shenzhou VII spacecraft.

"Shenzhou VII has touched down. The heroes have returned successfully," a typical headline read in the popular tabloid Beijing Times stretching across the front page.

Mainstream papers devoted two or three full pages to coverage of the space walk, celebrating China's status as only the third country in the world after the United States and the Soviet Union to accomplish the feat independently.

The astronauts landed Sunday on the empty steppes of Inner Mongolia after concluding a mission viewed both here and abroad as emblematic of China's rise in nearly all fields of human endeavor.

 Related Content:

Millions were watching the live broadcast Saturday as Zhai embarked on his 15-minute space walk, witnessing the symbolic moment when he waved a Chinese flag in the weightlessness of low orbit some 340 kilometers (210 miles) above the Earth.

"It was a glorious mission, full of challenges with a perfect ending," Zhai said after being pulled out of the return capsule. "I feel proud of the motherland."

Early Monday, the crew were flown to the Beijing space program headquarters, where ranking officers saluted them and children placed flower garlands around their necks.