The Heavens Bear Fruit Home; United Will Gathers the Pure Radiance
The Heavens Bear Fruit Home; United Will Gathers the Pure Radiance
■ Yu Haitian, Niu Kaixuan
At 20:11 Beijing Time on May 29, 2026, the Shenzhou-21 crew returned to Earth aboard the Shenzhou-22 crewed spacecraft, landing successfully at the Dongfeng Landing Site. Having completed a 210-day on-orbit mission in full, having personally experienced and witnessed multiple historic moments in the history of China's crewed spaceflight program, they safely returned to the motherland's soil.
Shenzhou-21 crew commander Zhang Lu, upon exiting the capsule and speaking to reporters, reached into his personal bag and produced a bright-red apple bearing the characters for "safe journey" (平安). He explained that before departure, the ground support team had pressed an apple into his hands, wishing the crew a safe and smooth mission. Now, he had deliberately brought one back. This was not only the delivery of a perfect answer sheet, but also—on the eve of May 30, "National Science and Technology Workers' Day"—the offering of this most unassuming fruit as a blessing to all science and technology workers across the country.
Shenzhou-21 crew commander Zhang Lu speaks to reporters.
A single apple thus connected heaven and earth—and also connected a story from seventy-one years ago.
In those days, Qian Xuesen, far across the ocean, finally broke through layer upon layer of obstruction and set foot on the road home. The film Qian Xuesen contains the following scene: an American expert, attempting to persuade him to stay, asked with an earnest yet arrogant tone, "What could you possibly do if you go back to China—go back and grow apple trees?" Faced with this question laced with humiliation, Qian Xuesen showed neither anger nor argument. He replied: "If the motherland needs it, growing apple trees is not out of the question."
A scene from the film Qian Xuesen.
Indeed—what could a top expert in the aerospace field do upon returning home? To say nothing of developing rockets or launching satellites: at that time, China had precious few precision machine tools worth mentioning. Qian Xuesen understood full well that the road ahead was hard, yet he was willing to stoop down and "grow apples," because he believed that as long as one carried love for the motherland in one's heart, even the most barren soil could bring forth flowers.
What he sowed were seeds of patriotism and seeds of science. After returning home, Qian Xuesen transformed the learning of a lifetime into sweet rain, pouring it over the land he loved so deeply. From the drafting of the "Proposal for Establishing China's National Defense Aviation Industry," to the success of the "two-bomb combination" (两弹结合) test; from the launch of China's first artificial satellite, Dongfanghong-1, to laying the foundation for the crewed spaceflight program—China's aerospace workers pressed forward in succession, digging in deserts, in the Gobi, and on islands, carving out one "tree pit" after another for New China on the road to the stars and the sea. That plain promise to "grow apples" made in those years has long since been transformed, through the cultivation of generation after generation of aerospace workers, into the highest form of romance the world has known: growing for the Chinese nation a towering tree called "aerospace," and nurturing an entire brilliant river of stars.
A working photograph of Qian Xuesen.
The stars have turned and the seasons have changed. On that land once decreed fit only for growing apples, everything has long since been transformed beyond recognition: from Shenzhou-5 fulfilling the dream of the heavens, to astronauts taking their first steps outside the capsule; from Tianwen-1's rendezvous with Mars, to the Tianhe core module taking up residence in the high heavens; from Wentian and Mengtian ascending one after another, to Chang'e-6 collecting soil from the far side of the Moon; from the Shenzhou-21 crew's 210-day on-orbit mission concluding in full success, to the apple in Zhang Lu's hand that came from space. All of this is sufficient proof that the "apple tree" planted by Elder Qian in those years has long since grown lush and full, holding up the spiritual backbone of the entire nation.
The apple in Zhang Lu's hand carries the vow of yesterday and also upholds the dream of today. It bears witness to the great miracle of Chinese aerospace growing from nothing into what it is, and conveys a cosmic-scale romance that belongs to China alone. In former times, our forebears took root in the great desert, broke new ground, and stooped to "grow apples" to open the way forward; today, astronauts carry fruit home in glory from the nine heavens above, paying tribute to every science and technology worker who has toiled in silence.
Over seventy years of wind and rain, the footsteps of the Chinese people in pursuit of their dream among the stars have never ceased.