TU Delft hosted "Citizen of Space", an annually organized
symposium which focused on travelling and living in space this
year. Invited were a number of internationally renowned speakers
among whom were Bernardo Patti, Head of the ISS Program (Esa,
Europe) and Yang Hong, Chief Designer Manned Spacecraft (CAST,
China).
Ambitious Chinese space missions
CAST (the Chinese Academy for Sciences and Technology) is a key
unit of China's space program. Yang Hong himself designed "Heavenly
Palace-1", a space module launched into the orbit last year. This
mission was part of China's plan to install a complete space
station which it expects to be operational by 2020.
Yang's emerging space-flight nation has ambitious plans, not
only to expand its status as an economic superpower, but to gain a
foothold in space as well. China therefore pursues i.a. new
missions to orbit and land on the Moon. In 2007, a Chinese
satellite orbited the moon for the first time. This year, a landing
mission will be conducted with the goal to recover samples by
2017.
So far this was a domain of the United States, the former Soviet
Union and a few other countries. They maintain and conduct research
for instance on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS,
however, is set to retire by 2020, the very year that China aims to
complete its much larger "Heavenly Palace" project, Yang Hong's
master piece.
Sino-European cooperation
The chief designer of this great undertaking told ScienceGuide
that he graduated in 1984 from the Chinese University for
telecommunications, science and technology. Subsequently, he was
trained by CAST as an engineer. "My team and I came to the 'Citizen
of Space' symposium to find out more about what is going on with
the European space industry. There is a lot of new and creative
concepts being built right here."
"I believe that for the Chinese and European space industry
there are great opportunities in working together," Yang states.
"The technical university here in Delft is a great platform to get
in touch with ambitious students and stakeholders."
The Dutch space industry gathered last week with a group of
members of parliament to strengthen the awareness in Europe and the
Netherlands in particular of both the validity of Yang Hong's
analysis and the opportunities tis fact gives for a top-tech
country like the Netherlands. Read the article on this here (in Dutch). It was written by Sander
Breur, the astrophysics student and former chairman of the national
students union LSVb, who is a candidate himself to become an
astronaut.
Moon, Mars only one step
While China is aiming for the moon in these next few years, Yang
himself has even more ambitious plans for the longer term
perspectives of China and its space-efforts and research. "My
ultimate dream is to let manned space flight benefit all humanity.
Not just our Chinese people, but all citizens in the world. I think
that flying to Mars is just one step. In fact, we should think much
beyond that."
This also means investing in future talent, Yang argues. Just
like in the Netherlands and many major industrial countries the
enthusiasm for space-related STEM studies is a major factor and
worry in China, Hong reveals. "The Chinese government is very
concerned that there is enough young talented people studying
sciences like engineering, mathematics etc. I think that the trend
we now see that many Chinese students decide to study in Europe is
a great thing. Education in Europe is the best."
Yang urges, however, that this should not result in a brain
drain for China or a one-way traffic of knowledge, ideas and
innovations. "It is very important that there is an exchange
between China and Europe. We also welcome European students and
want to see them study with us in China. Nevertheless, we are also
concerned that our Chinese citizens return to their home country
and research there."