Ever since Shenzhou V, the first mission in China’s manned space program, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has played an important role in keeping astronauts healthy. Chinese astronauts drink herbal medicine to tonify their qi and activate blood circulation; they use massage and acupuncture for relaxation. In 2008, to prevent space motion sickness, Shenzhou VII, for the first time, carried Chinese patent medicine, a heart-nourishing pill named Taikong Yangxinwan (太空養心丸), into space. On Shenzhou XII, doctors monitored astronauts’ health from Earth via TCM diagnostic instruments installed on the spaceship. On Shenzhou XIII, a portable electrical acupoint stimulation device enabled astronauts to have therapy whenever they needed during the flight. On the recent Shenzhou XV, shenlingcao (参灵草), a Chinese herbal tonic consisting of ginseng, ganoderma lucidum, and cordyceps sinensis was used to relieve fatigue.
Although cultural nationalism has often been regarded as the driving force of TCM (Croizier Citation1965), this essay shows that this conventional interpretation is not adequate in explaining the development of TCM in the field of aerospace. Motivations were multiple and complex (Taylor Citation2005, 151–152), and therapeutic and scientific values played an important role in addition to political and economic considerations. Showing promising results with few side effects in treating space sickness, TCM, whose holistic methodology is different from Western reductionism, has become a way for China to advocate scientific plurality and techno-diversity. It is also a way for China to demonstrate the Chinese characteristics of its manned space program and represent China’s scientific and technological nationalism in an increasingly competitive world.
