Thousands of Dreams to Fly

The dreams of more than 40,000 people will be stored as text and video on a chip and sent into space along with Shenzhou VIII spacecraft next month.

The Shenzhou VIII is slated to take off in the first half of next month from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center to complete China's first spacecraft rendezvous and docking mission with the Tiangong-1 space module, which was launched on Sept 29.

The 42,891 dreams were selected from a pool of 12 million in line with the criteria of "positive and passionate", said Feng Chunping, president of China Space News, the activity sponsor, at a ceremony on Thursday. Proposed by netizens, university students and children from orphanages, most dreams expressed longing for space, hopes for a stronger nation, and a greener and better society, she said.

Some are bold thoughts, as a netizen wrote that China's future space station should develop a function to collect space debris.

Others are practical. Zhou Maocuo and Jia Linlin from an orphanage in Beijing said their dream is to have a stable home.

Feng said after Shenzhou VIII returns to Earth in late November, those whose dreams are picked will be able to download a certificate from the activity's official website as a souvenir.