China's Long March legacy endures from trek to tech

In October 1934, the Communist Party of China was forced to retreat from the Central Soviet Area in East China's Jiangxi province and move northwest after enduring a series of encirclement campaigns by rival forces of the Kuomintang party. The CPC-led Red Army broke through enemy blockades, crossed rugged terrain, and endured fierce battles and immense hardship. Tens of thousands of soldiers lost their lives along the way.

Few people represent the connection between these two journeys better than Sun Jixian. During the Long March, Sun, as a Red Army officer, led his men across a major river under enemy fire, helping the Red Army break through a dangerous bottleneck in 1935. More than a decade later, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he took on a different mission -- building the country's first missile and satellite launch site in the remote Gobi Desert. His team battled sandstorms, drank alkaline water, lived in tents and caves, and transferred equipment by hand across the barren landscape.

"I remember once when my father returned from the desert, he reached into his coat pocket to look for candies for me, but what he touched was a handful of rough, cold sand," recalled Sun Dongning, his 75-year-old son.

In the 1960s, when China began developing its first rocket, the country had a weak industrial base and was cut off from access to many key foreign technologies. Scientists performed calculations using hand-cranked computing machines and worked day and night in poor workshops.