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Turning over the thick history of the CPC over the past century, from the great victory of the revolution to the great rejuvenation of the nation, the revolutionary cultural relics that have endured vicissitudes one after another have recorded a series of red stories that have reached the hearts of the people and the historical moments that have carried forward the past one after another, which is the best witness of the CPC cutting through thorns and forging ahead.
On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Party, the Central Radio and Television Corporation, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and the Central Cyberspace Administration jointly launched the "Red Seal - Sound Archive of 100 Revolutionary Cultural Relics", which was officially launched on March 22 at the Central Radio and Television Station, and was simultaneously launched on new media platforms such as CCTV News, CCTV News, and Yunting. 100 narrators, using the "most beautiful voice" to burn a century of memories.
Burning a century of memories with my voice, I am Dai Yuqiang, narrator of revolutionary cultural relics, opera actor, and educator. The cultural relics I want to talk about are two special cassettes that were once treasured by Chairman Mao Zedong, which recorded the music transmitted by the "Dongfanghong No. 1" satellite after it first went to heaven, and is now in the collection of comrade Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Shaoshan, Hunan Province.
"Dongfang Hong" tape witnessing the beginning of the new China's aerospace industry (photo provided by the interviewee)
On April 24, 1970, the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the "Long March 1" carrier rocket lifted the "Dongfanghong No. 1" satellite, and a new era of China's aerospace began. On that day, a loud "Oriental Red" song came from the radio, and Chinese achieved the first percussion of the vast universe. And this old tape is the witness to the beginning of the great journey of the new Chinese aerospace industry.
Realistic images! Watch the whole process of the launch of "Dongfanghong No. 1" (Video source: Documentary "Cosmic Song of Dongfanghong")
Time pushed back 12 years, and Hu Qizheng, an expert of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology Group and the overall designer of the "Dongfanghong No. 1" satellite at the time, was only 23 years old at that time. In 1958, after the successful launch of sputnik by the Soviet Union and the United States, Chairman Mao Zedong issued a call, "We must also engage in sputnik." Hu Qizheng, who has just graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Tsinghua University, was assigned to the 581 group led by Qian Xuesen, Zhao Jiuzhang and other scientists to engage in the overall design of satellites.
Hu Qizheng: The Soviet Union only launched artificial satellites in 1957, and many scientists think that we should also build satellites, but how to do satellites? No one has done it. Basically I changed my career completely.
Later, due to three years of natural disasters, but also because of technical difficulties such as immature missile technology and inability to go to the sky, China's first artificial satellite program was repeatedly stranded. Until the end of 1964, Zhao Jiuzhang sent a letter to Premier Zhou Enlai, proposing that with the successful explosion of China's first atomic bomb and the success of missile launches, the suspended satellite development program should be resumed as soon as possible. In October of the following year, the central government mobilized the country's scientific elite to discuss how to develop satellites. The length, scale and content of this meeting are unprecedented in the history of new China's aerospace industry. Hu Qizheng said that the first question that bothered everyone at that time was, what kind of satellite to build?
Hu Qizheng: What was the target of the first satellite? Everyone was talking about it, all kinds of demands, and even those who wanted to make a Tiananmen square shape.
"Dongfanghong No.1" was finally determined to be a spherical design of the 72-sided body (Source: CCTV)
Dozens of days of discussion have made the prototype of the satellite gradually clear: the spherical design of the 72-sided body. The meeting also set an overall goal of 12 words: "to go up, to grasp, to hear, to see."
"Grasping" means that the ground can maintain communication with satellites. At that time, there was no official satellite measurement and control station in China, in order to "grasp" the trajectory of the satellite, the relevant units in the country quickly broke through the key technology of radio orbit measurement and built China's initial satellite measurement and control network.
Various monitoring and control stations used to track the position of satellites (Source: Documentary "Cosmic Song Of The East red")
The requirement of "audible" requires being able to play music in space and let the world hear the voices that belong to China's aerospace. Shen Zhenjing, a member of the satellite experimental team in charge of the music device at the time, said that the designers kept proposing plans and finally determined that the "Dongfanghong No. 1" used a transmitter to convert the electronic version of the Dongfanghong music into a radio signal and broadcast it on the ground. Electronic music was chosen because electronic music has no contact points and is easier to implement than music boxes and tape drives.
"Dongfanghong I" music box on the satellite (Source: China Academy of Space Technology)
In order to achieve the "visible" effect, the developers made an "observation skirt", which will be unfolded to form a spherical shape with a diameter of about four meters after following the satellite into orbit, which is far greater than the diameter of one meter of the satellite, and can also be seen with the naked eye on the ground. On the evening of April 25, 1970, the "Dongfanghong No. 1" flew over Beijing, and people looked up at the sky and saw the "Chinese Star"!
"Dongfanghong-1" observation skirt (Source: China Academy of Space Technology)
In December 1967, the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense held the first working conference on the development of artificial satellites, and officially named it "Dongfanghong No. 1". Just 29 months after the name was named, at 21:35 on April 24, 1970, China's first artificial satellite was launched from Jiuquan Base. A few hours later, the music of "Dongfang Hong" uploaded from the satellite resounded through the radio waves of the Central People's Radio. Countless Chinese waited by the radio, singing along with the music...
People's Daily and People's Liberation Army Daily issued good news (partial) for "China successfully launched the first artificial earth satellite" (Source: National Museum of China)
On the second day after the successful launch of the satellite, Premier Zhou Enlai, who was attending the "three countries and four parties" meeting in Southeast Asia in Guangzhou, excitedly announced to the delegates the news of the successful launch of the "Dongfanghong I" as soon as he entered the venue.
Historical image: Premier Zhou Enlai announces China's successful launch of the first artificial satellite (Video source: CCTV)
Subsequently, Chairman Mao Zedong received two tapes sent by the Military Control Group of the Central Broadcasting Bureau, which were directly recorded and unsected audio tapes when the "Dongfanghong No. 1" satellite flew over the capital Beijing and Hainan Island.
Yang Guoli, director of the Comrade Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Shaoshan, Hunan Province: After Comrade Mao Zedong received these two audio tapes, he kept them around him and regarded them as treasures until his death. Through this cultural relic, we also hope to pass on the spirit of "two bombs and one satellite" founded by the older generation of astronauts represented by the cultural relics.
Listen to "Dongfang Hong" that resounded throughout space (source: documentary "Cosmic Song Of Dongfang Hong")
To this day, the "Dongfanghong I" is still looking at the motherland in space, and the sound recorded on this tape will also encourage China's aerospace industry to always walk on the road of self-reliance and hard work.
Exhibition hall of Comrade Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Shaoshan (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
Mao Bingyu: I am Mao Bingyu, the "post-90s" docent of the Shaoshan Comrade Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, and every highlight moment of China's aerospace industry makes us can't help but cheer, just like every time I tell you the story behind the "Oriental Red Tape", I can feel the efforts of the astronauts to insist on Qingshan and not relax. This encourages me to tell the story of red cultural relics in the future and contribute to the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Director system 丨 Liu Xiaolong Gu Yucai
Producer 丨Gao Yan
Chief Planner 丨Fan Xinzheng Cui Xin
Planning 丨 Ding Fei Sun Lujin
Coordinator丨Li Chun Feng Shuo Zhu Min Li Hao Liu Mengya Zhao Chu Nan Han Xueying
Reporter 丨Jiang Wenjing Fu Lei
Editor 丨 Du Ximeng
Narrator 丨 Dai Yuqiang
Production 丨 Liu Yifei
New media 丨 Wang Yuan Zhao Chu Nan
Audio data collation 丨 Fang Yuan
Consultant 丨 Researcher of the Central Academy of Party History and Literature Xu Pengtang
Thanks 丨 Shaoshan Comrade Mao Zedong Memorial Hall