'We used a bicycle pump to bring fuel into the engine of the rocket and antennas to monitor the rocket in the sky, like children with a toy aircraft. We had no walkie-talkies and had to shout at each other,' recalls Li Dayao.
It was 1958 in a field beside a river south of Shanghai. Mr Li was one of a group of Chinese scientists taking their first hesitant steps on the space programme.
They were following the instructions of Chairman Mao Zedong, who earlier that year had announced China would launch a man-made satellite, an ambition then considered ridiculous around the world. At that time, the Soviet Union was the only country that had successfully launched a satellite, in 1957.
'It was the year of the Great Leap Forward,' said Mr Li, who retired in 2000 from a Beijing aerospace research institute. 'So we were set a very ambitious target of launching a satellite before National Day [October 1] in 1959.'
The day finally came on April 24, 1970, when the 'East is Red No. 1' was launched on a Long March rocket, which became a symbol of the Mao era.
'As it was the Cultural Revolution, I had been sent to do hard labour on a state farm in the northeast,' Mr Li said. 'It was just after nine o'clock in the evening and a radiant light lit up the sky, like a giant star. It was a moment to move the hearts of men.'
