Wan Hu (万户 or 万虎) is a legendary Chinese official – supposedly having lived from as early as 2000 BCE to as late as the middle Ming dynasty (16th century) — who was described in 20th century sources as the world's first "astronaut" by having been lifted by rockets into outer space. The crater Wan-Hoo on the far side of the Moon is named after him. The legend of Wan Hu "Wang Tu" A precursor of the story of Wan Hu appeared in an article by John Elfreth Watkins, published in the 2 October 1909 issue of Scientific American, which used the name Wang Tu instead of Wan Hu: "Tradition asserts that the first to sacrifice himself to the problem of flying was Wang Tu, a Chinese mandarin of about 2,000 years B.C. Who, having had constructed a pair of large, parallel and horizontal kites, seated himself in a chair fixed between them while forty-seven attendants each with a candle ignited forty-seven rockets placed beneath the apparatus. But the rocket under the chair exploded, burning the mandarin and so angered the Emperor that he ordered a severe paddling for Wang." The possibly farcical text proceeds to describe several other fictional stories of ancient aviators. A date of 2000 BCE pre-dates the emergence of writing in China by three or four centuries and pre-dates the invention of gunpowder-based rockets in China by about 3,000 years. "Wan Hu" The legend of "Wan Hu" was widely disseminated by an unreferenced account in Rockets and Jets by American author Herbert S. Zim in 1945. Another book from the same year, by George Edward Pendray, describes it as an "oft repeated tale of those early days." Most authorities consider the story apocryphal. Early in the sixteenth century, Wan decided to take advantage of China's advanced rocket and fireworks technology to launch himself into outer space. He supposedly had a chair built with forty-seven rockets attached. On the day of lift-off, Wan, splendidly attired, climbed into his rocket chair and forty seven servants lit the fuses and then hastily ran for cover. There was a huge explosion. When the smoke cleared, Wan and the chair were gone, and was said never to have been seen again. Popular culture In a 2004 episode of the television series MythBusters, an attempt was made to recreate Wan Hu's flight using materials that would have been available to him. The