In the thundering workshop in Beijing, Liu Zheng has experienced firsthand how fast China's space development has leaped since he joined in 2005.

He works on making rocket components, by way of Computer Numerical Control (CNC), and the goal has always been making the production process as smart, as precise, as efficient, as possible.

Those components are part of China's famous Long March carrier rockets, from the ones that lift taikonauts to space to the ones that carry compartments of China's newly fully completed space station.

And that rocket speed is felt on the ground, in the workshop.

Liu, head craftsman of the CNC Machining Technology Research Laboratory at Capital Aerospace Machinery Corporation, also a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), tells CGTN the changes he witnessed in the last 17 years.

"When I first joined here in 2005, we launched one rocket every 10 years or so. And then, it's a dozen launches every year. Now it's over 60 launches a year," he said.

And in his work, it's the same way.

"If you look at one trestle component for rockets for example, in 2005 we made it with regular machine tools manually and it takes a month to make just one. Then we improved on the three-axis CNC machining, and could make one in one week. Later, we developed on the five-axis high-speed machining, and it's one component made every day. Now, we've further upgraded it to automatic, standardized production, and we make one, an even better one in three hours,”he said.

Liu said the CNC system is the brain for the machine tools, and the five-axis-linkage is the most difficult part of it. And in that machine turning and milling, there is the secret how China's space industry developed: by pooling many brains together for one goal.

"We had state support in the project, we worked with domestic manufacturers from research to development, and had our homegrown five-axis-linkage CNC system, which could not be imported. Without this core technology, much modern space equipment is impossible."

He said it's generations of those devoted to the cause that made China's space development possible. "China's space industry has gone from weak to robust, and that comes from generations of people working together," he noted. 

For his generation, Liu says they are also eyeing a common goal: to make China a manufacturing power and a space power.

And for that, they're already planning ahead.

"Future space equipment needs ever-more-advanced space manufacturing. I hope to employ new technologies in the area, for example machine-learning, digital-simulation and other new technologies, and improve not only the efficiency but also the quality and reliability of our work.”