Astronaut Li Guangsu's temperament is very similar to his WeChat name "Running Snail", he said that he has ordinary talents, and he must take every step steadily, even if it is a snail, he must try his best to run towards space.
On April 24, at the meeting between the Shenzhou 18 astronauts and Chinese and foreign reporters held at the Wentian Pavilion of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, 36-year-old Li Guangsu made his first public appearance as an astronaut.
Li Guangsu is the only liberal arts student in the third batch of astronauts.
On March 15, 2024, Li Guangsu trains underwater. Xu Bu/photo
When he was in high school with Chinese and science, Li Guangsu chose liberal arts according to his interests and expertise.
When Li Guangsu was in his third year of high school, the news that the Air Force was recruiting pilots spread throughout the school, providing a new opportunity for the students who were sprinting towards the ivory tower. The students rushed to tell each other and enthusiastically signed up. The sound of the propeller engraved in his childhood memory reappeared in his mind again, and Li Guangsu was also eager to try. Unexpectedly, after several rounds of selection, he was lucky to be officially admitted to the Air Force Aviation University.
On August 2, 2006, 19-year-old Li Guangsu packed his bags, bid farewell to his hometown, went all the way to the north, went to the outside world, and officially started his military career.
The mountain is high and the road is long, and the challenges are coming one after another. The physical fitness assessment once made him suffer. When he first entered the school, his horizontal bars and parallel bars score was almost zero, and his sprint and long-distance running scores were a little far from passing, and if he failed any subject, he could be eliminated.
In order to improve his sprinting performance, Li Guangsu got up half an hour early every day, and ran three kilometers with sandbags tied to his legs in the early morning when the water was dripping into ice in the north, before dawn and against the biting cold wind. Gradually, his physical performance improved significantly, and he achieved excellence in all disciplines.
On June 28, 2023, Li Guangsu participated in the individual training of marine lifesaving and survival training. Kong Fangzhou/photo
After graduation, Li Guangsu began to enter the junior regiment for training, and at this time, he encountered a huge problem - airsickness, which made him directly face the test of grounding.
Li Guangsu still remembers the first time he experienced flying, he waited outside the control tower, watching planes carrying new students taxi from the runway and take off into the sky. Li Guangsu was both nervous and full of anticipation. After a comrade-in-arms flew down, everyone gathered around him and asked him, "What is it like to fly?"
The comrade-in-arms' face was full of excitement and pride: "The flight is so exciting, it feels very good!" Li Guangsu was deeply affected and couldn't wait to drive the plane to the sky for a spin.
But when he got on the plane with great anticipation, the turbulence of the plane in the air current, and the strong smell of gasoline in the cabin, made him feel nauseous.
Li Guangsu thought, this is over, if he vomits at this time, he may face grounding. He had been holding back the feeling of dizziness, trying to distract himself, and he was holding back a cold sweat. As soon as he got off the plane, he went straight to the bathroom and vomited.
In the days that followed, it was a torturous time that he couldn't look back on - as long as the instructor did a horizontal scroll during flight training, Li Guangsu's stomach was overturned. To his pain, the horizontal scroll was repeated a dozen or so times in a row, and his stomach tumbled with the plane. There was even a time when the food in his stomach came flooding up and he swallowed it raw.
In the training day after day, Li Guangsu constantly overcame and adjusted his state. In addition, he also learns more seriously, so that he can master the technique as soon as possible and reduce the frequency and time of practice. With strong perseverance and unremitting efforts, Li Guangsu finally slowly overcame the motion sickness.
After completing the training of the Higher Education Corps, Li Guangsu was assigned to a certain base and officially became a fighter pilot.
Once, when flying at night in Xinjiang, Li Guangsu also saw a particularly magnificent Milky Way scene because of the clean air and high visibility. Since then, he has been full of yearning for the vast and mysterious space.
On December 4, 2023, Li Guangsu was training in a swivel chair. Kong Fangzhou/photo
With the vigorous development of the manned space program, the country began to select the third batch of astronauts. Li Guangsu actively applied for the name and passed one strict selection after another. Thinking about it now, Li Guangsu feels like a dream.
The third group of astronauts caught up with the high-frequency space station missions, and the time was tight and the task was heavy.
Li Guangsu is a liberal arts student, and it is very difficult to learn science and engineering courses, especially those obscure formulas and symbols, which are like "books from heaven" to him. He felt distressed, anxious, and sometimes like a headless fly, his mouth was so anxious that he couldn't sleep at night.
Li Guangsu used the after-school time to break through the small knowledge points one by one, and "gnawed" little by little. Ask people everywhere for advice, and brush up on questions repeatedly to understand. After surviving many sleepless nights, Li Guangsu finally conquered one esoteric and difficult knowledge point after another.
You can score 100 points, but you definitely don't score 99 points. The astronauts of the same batch are secretly competing. Every late night, the lights in the brigade apartment are bright, and the lights are basically not turned off before 12 o'clock.
Of course, Li Guangsu is not far behind. He believes that every learning and training must be perfect.
The 72-hour psychological adaptation training in a confined environment requires three days and three nights without sleep in a closed room, and various assessments must be completed at the specified time. Li Guangsu demanded that he must overcome his sleepiness. It should have been more and more exhausting over time, and the level of performance on the assessment would have decreased. Li Guangsu secretly reminded himself that every time he did the assessment, he had to work harder and pay more attention than the last time. Sure enough, his assessment results are getting better and better.
"Human potential is limitless, as long as we maintain a firm belief, we will be able to overcome all kinds of difficulties and challenges. He said.
48 hours of desert wilderness survival training, the highest temperature in the tent during the day is about 45 °C, the surface temperature is as high as 75 °C, and it will take less than 3 seconds to be scalded and retracted if you step on the sand with bare feet. The night's minimum temperatures plummeted to single digits, and the wind swept through the sand and gravel, making people huddle in the cold. In the end, Li Guangsu and his teammates overcame the harsh environment and survived with limited dry food and water.
On August 25, 2023, Li Guangsu participated in the man-ship joint training and entered the return capsule. Kong Fangzhou/photo
When he learned that he was selected for the Shenzhou 18 crew as 03, his heart was very calm. Looking back on the road I have traveled, I have had the confusion of not knowing anything about the future when I first joined the team, I have studied as intensely as preparing for the college entrance examination, I have had 72 hours of sleepless sleep in a small environment, I have had the hunger and thirst in the desert and wild environment, and I have the perseverance to repack and start again. Hardship shows courage and perseverance, and hard work leads to success.
For the upcoming space journey, Li Guangsu is full of expectations - looking forward to the speed and passion of 7.9 km/s, looking forward to the different experience brought by weightlessness, and experiencing the wonderful feeling of flying without wings.
"In my spare time, I want to take a good look at the beautiful blue planet, take a look at the splendid mountains and rivers of the motherland, find a place that has raised and nurtured me along the way, and also want to see if the stars in the sky will blink for my lovely children. Li Guangsu said.
China Youth Daily (ID: zqbcyol Collation: Zhang Liyou) is synthesized from the China Youth Daily client (China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Qiu Chenhui, correspondent Zhan Kang), China Youth Daily video account, Xinhua News Agency