Born June 21, 1965 (Suizhong, Liaoning, China)

Chinese astronaut

On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei became the first Chinese man to travel in space. His flight on the Shenzhou-5 marked a historic moment: China was now the third nation in the world capable of developing and launching a manned space vehicle. Since 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968; see entry) and American astronaut Alan Shepard (1923–1998; see box in John Glenn [1921–] entry) became the first humans to orbit Earth, the former Soviet Union and the United States had been the dominant forces in space exploration. This is not to say astronauts and cosmonauts from other countries had never traveled into space. France and Germany had operated astronaut programs since the 1970s and had recruited astronauts of many nationalities. The European Space Agency established an astronaut corps in 1998 (see Claudie Haigneré [1957–] entry), providing an even greater global reach. Yet no other nation maintained...