[First space walk] In 2008, China had its first spacewalker. Taikonaut Zhai Zhigang, who was then 42 years old, ventured out of the earth-orbiting Shenzhou-7 spacecraft on September 27 and became the first Chinese to leave a "footprint in the universe." China thus became the third country in the world after the United States and the Soviet Union to be capable of spacewalk.
