Lathe worker helped China shoot for stars

Wang Yang could never have imagined the role he would play in China's manned space exploration program when he landed a job at a factory in Shenyang, Liaoning province, 31 years ago.

Even now, when the taciturn 50-year-old lathe worker sees pictures of Shenzhou spacecraft on the television he only tells his wife these simple words: "There are some parts on it that were made by me".

Born in 1966 as the youngest child of two space industry workers in Shenyang, Wang was employed in 1986 by the Shenyang Xinguang Factory, now called Shenyang Aerospace Xinguang Group, after serving three years with the People's Liberation Army.