Shanghai Daily News

Space researchers watched the fruit of their efforts on TV yesterday morning, and tens of thousands of city residents bought special newspaper additions dedicated to the launch of Shenzhou VI as the city buzzed with the news of the successful operation.

Workers at Shanghai Spaceflight Equipment Manufacturing, which produced part of the spacecraft, jumped with joy in front of TV sets yesterday morning when Shenzhou VI took off.

Local residents were eager to get the newspaper supplements to know more about the historical event.

Within two hours, more than 30,000 extra edition of the newspaper published by the Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group were sold out.

The two astronauts on board Shenzhou VI reportedly took a copy of a supplement produced by the Jiefang Daily into space with them.

An e-mail survey of 1,000 local residents suggested that the vast majority of Shanghainese would be watching the launch on TV. Sixty-nine percent of those polled said they would watch the launch live.