【Article/Observer Network Columnist Li Huichao】
On April 29, the core module of China's space station "Tianhe" was successfully launched into orbit, kicking off the prelude to China's construction of a long-term manned space station.
In the next two years, China's manned spaceflight will usher in intensive launches: a number of Shenzhou manned spacecraft and Tianzhou cargo spacecraft will be launched, and the necessary technical tests will be completed together with the core module to verify the status of the core module to continue construction. After that, the two experimental modules of the space station will be launched, forming a large space station containing three main modules and weighing about 60 tons. Chinese astronauts will frequently travel back and forth between space and the earth, using the space station to carry out long-term stable scientific and technological experiments.
In the past, most of the manned space missions were aimed at verifying technology, and each Shenzhou spacecraft had to unlock new skills in manned space technology. It can be expected that since the space station was put into operation, manned spaceflight has entered an era of more prominent benefits, increasingly supporting other scientific and technological disciplines to produce new research and experimental results.
In addition to China's space station, there is also a large space station known as the "International Space Station" running in low Earth orbit. The space station is dominated by Russia and the United States, with ESA and Japan's JAXA as important players, and astronauts from 19 countries have visited the International Space Station on us and Russian spacecraft.
But for China, the only country outside Russia and the United States with independent manned space capabilities, it has been shut out of the International Space Station. Rather, it was shut out by the United States.
In 2007, after the success of the Shenzhou 5 and 6 missions and the fact that China was able to send astronauts into space, senior officials of our government expressed their desire to participate in the International Space Station program in public. Like the desire of other fields to be "in line with international standards", we have laid our own foundation and are ready to take on the relevant responsibilities, hoping that we can become a member of the International Space Station. This desire is supported by ESA, which maintains long-term cooperation with China Aerospace.
In 2010, ESA Director Dordan announced that ESA had proposed to admit China as a new member of the International Space Station. But in accordance with the decision-making principles of the International Space Station, this proposal must be agreed upon by all members of the space station to become a reality.
At this time, an anti-China, anti-Chinese "key gentleman" in the field of space appeared - Rep. Frank Wolff, Republican from Pennsylvania. He earned degrees in political science and law, worked as a lawyer in his early years, and served in the U.S. Army. He later entered politics and served as a member of the House of Representatives for a long time.
It stands to reason that a highly educated and successful American like Wolff should have basic common sense. Yet, on Issues related to China, the old man seems to be insane, holding high the anti-China flag in some seemingly ridiculous ways — in the 1990s, he attacked China's human rights situation and advocated the abolition of china's most-favored-nation treatment, and came up with an example of "Chinese human babies as a delicacy", which is evident in the absurdity of his remarks and understanding.
Such a seemingly mentally dysfunctional man has in the final years of his career mixed in with the chairman of the House Business, Technology, and Judicial Appropriations Committee. Because this committee has the power to approve NASA's budget, Wolff has been given the opportunity to guide outsiders in the field of space and space, and anti-China anti-Chinese livelihoods have achieved outer space.
After repeated rhetoric about human rights and technology breaches, Wolff added a ban on bilateral cooperation with China to NASA's appropriations bill of 2011, which has shown no signs of loosening. In the case of the Entry into Force of the Chinese Exclusion Act, commonly known as the Wolf Amendment, NASA was unable to cooperate with China in the field of manned spaceflight, and naturally could not agree to the opening of the Isis to China. As a result, all the participating countries of the International Space Station cannot agree on whether to accept China, making it impossible for our country to participate in the cooperation of the International Space Station.
For this situation, it cannot be simply said that "NASA refuses to cooperate with China." In fact, many professional staff, including then NASA Director Bolden, have done a lot of work to promote Sino-US cooperation in the field of space. The US politicians represented by Wolff, who know nothing about space but are enthusiastic about anti-China, believe that restricting Sino-US cooperation in the space field will weaken China's own space capabilities, force China to "improve" its own human rights situation, and allow the United States to continue to maintain its leading position in the space field. They naively think that without the technology "stolen" from the United States, Chinese nothing can be done.
In order to prove their prejudices, the Wolffs, who could not find the facts, did not hesitate to create "facts". In 2013, Wolff held a news conference to concoct fake news that Bo Jiang, a Chinese employee of a NASA contractor, had stolen NASA technical documents. Under Wolff's influence, the FBI arrested Jiang Bo before he was about to board a plane to China, and NASA also experienced a big toss: its NTRS service, which houses public scientific and technical reports, was forced to go offline and its contents were reviewed one by one; foreign employees from specific countries within NASA also needed additional security checks.
As a result, the FBI found that Jiang Bo was innocent after an investigation, and the tossing and turning within NASA did not get the results that Wolff wanted, while Wolff, who fabricated facts and wasted a lot of administrative resources — that is, The money of the American taxpayers — remained firmly on the chairman of his House and Committee. However, after this incident, NASA has been cautious on all China-related issues to avoid further trouble.
What Wolff did was not taken seriously by american academia and diplomacy. Time magazine, Foreign Policy, Space Policy and other websites have published commentary articles describing Wolff's chinese exclusion and anti-China in space as bad ideas, ridiculous, silly, and childish politics. Some commentators, from the perspective of human cooperation and development, criticized Wolff's policy for delaying the joint exploration of space by the two major space powers, and also gave other countries a "two-or" problem.
Even those articles that discuss issues from the perspective of U.S. interests argue that China has never made concessions on the so-called "human rights" issue because of foreign exclusion and suppression. Instead of softening China, Wolff's bill has forced out a new force in space and put america's lead in space in jeopardy.
Originally, the Americans could also comprehensively investigate China's space capabilities and the operation of the space system through cooperation with China, and even limit China's space activities to the US technology system. But Wolff's bill cost Americans those opportunities.
Just a few months after the passage of the Wolfe Amendment, China's Tiangong-1 target vehicle was successfully launched. However, it is worth mentioning that the official establishment of China's space station project was in 2010, a year before Wolff's bill. That is to say, it is not Wolff who forced out a space station power, but we were determined to become a space station power by our own efforts from the beginning, and participating in the cooperation of the International Space Station is only a side option in our development process. Whether the Americans accept us or not, our country will complete the "main line task", develop its own space station, and carry out extensive and open international cooperation on this basis.
The experimental projects on the space station that have been identified have attracted scientists from many countries to cooperate with our country. And when the time comes, other countries can even connect their own designed and manufactured modules to the Chinese space station. According to public papers, China's space station, which consists of three modules, reserves the ability to expand to six modules in the future. If other countries want to use the platform of the Chinese space station to carry out their own research work, in addition to reaching a high degree of agreement with China on the intention of cooperation, they must also design and manufacture related equipment in strict accordance with the standards of the Chinese space station in order to go to heaven.
From being shut out of the International Space Station at first, to being called a rising star in low Earth orbit. Our progress in the space station project is both a gratifying technical achievement and a truth that has been repeatedly confirmed: doing our own thing in a down-to-earth manner is more important than connecting with the "world" dominated by the West. When our own skills are strong enough, the world will take the initiative to connect with us. This may also be an example of a "major change not seen in a century".
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