On June 17th, 2021, three Chinese astronauts—Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo—entered the Tianhe core module of China’s space station. This landmark achievement was the first time that astronauts from China, also known as taikonauts, had entered their country’s own space station. In this edition of Footprints, we tell the stories of these three Chinese astronauts to discover how they realized their dreams of becoming space explorers.