◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Zhang Jiaxing
During the Lantern Festival in the Year of the Tiger, astronaut Wang Yaping's song "Jasmine" made people can't help but think about space. Space is so big, can ordinary people also go to see it?
In the proposal of Wu Ji, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a researcher at the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the "space tourism" that ordinary people dare not think of has been mentioned.
"In the future, visitors to space can also enjoy the service of calling their families and communicating videos." These are technically achievable. On February 20, Wu Ji said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that after the proposal was proposed, the China National Space Administration attached great importance to it, specifically sought him out about the situation, and organized a discussion. After analysis and demonstration, the state has introduced policies to encourage and support space tourism.
In May 2020, Wu Ji wrote the proposal to "encourage and promote the development of space tourism" into the proposal, and more than a year later, on January 28, 2022, the State Council Information Office issued a white paper on "China's Aerospace in 2021", which clearly wrote "space tourism" into the development plan for the next five years.
Accurately predict the direction of development, space tourism comes true after the proposal is proposed
Two years ago, space tourism was something that many people did not dare to think about, and the proposal of "space tourism" would be a bit ahead of its time?
"I don't think the idea is ahead of its time." Wu Ji responded to the Science and Technology Daily reporter, 50 years ago, human beings can go to the moon through science and technology, but the price is expensive, so the essence of the advance or not is the cost of the problem, and now the price of rocket launch has been reduced by ten times, and the cost has reached the stage where space tourism can be developed.
Wu Ji's judgment was quickly confirmed by a decision by the WHITE House. The U.S. government announced that space tourism in near-Earth orbit will be opened to commercial companies, a decision that has made SpaceX and other three companies "firsts" in 2021, sending real tourists rather than astronauts into space.
The "new Shepard" capsule designed for suborbital space travel. Image source: Business Insider website
"If space tourism in other countries develops, people in our country want to go to space tourism, but also go abroad to queue, others have to accept how much price they book." Wu Ji said, "Through the analysis of the pure civil space market, I found that new formats, including space tourism, may be a vacancy in our country, which was not paid enough attention in China at that time." ”
Due to the anticipation of the development trend of space tourism, Wu Ji proposed in the proposal that science popularization, enterprises, finance and other levels should be encouraged to participate in the space tourism industry.
Space tourism is not a "rich man's ride", but can really promote the development of spaceflight
Of the space trips currently being scheduled, the cost of travel ranges from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars, and some journeys take only 90 minutes. Some pragmatists wonder: How much can such a trip, which seems to be just a fun for the rich, mean to reality?
In Wu Ji's view, space tourism is ostensibly a ride by some rich people who dare to explore, but in fact, it can drive the incubation and germination of new aerospace formats, and promote the further development and maturity of aerospace science and technology.
The development of aerospace science and technology is inseparable from high investment. Wu Ji calculated an account for the reporter: Generally speaking, the investment in aerospace science and technology funds follows the steady growth of the country's GDP, if a new market is developed, new demand is formed, and new formats are opened, there will be commercial companies and capital to follow up, forming a synergy for the development of the aerospace industry and aerospace technology, and the investment will likely increase "sharply" (the development of information technology is a good precedent).
"In the past one or two years, I have also learned that some investment companies, commercial space companies, and cultural and creative fields on the mainland have begun to get involved in space tourism." Wu Ji said that driven by a proposal, not only the state has given policy support and encouragement, but also some enterprises have begun to respond, and he is very pleased.
As space tourism matures and flourishes, hard-core technical issues such as rocket engine recyclability, reusable manned capsules, high-speed data relay, space resource utilization, and extraction of fuel from the lunar surface are bound to be studied and solved first. Wu Ji said that some technologies are actually gradually developed, and the future can form a development momentum that echoes space tourism.
When human beings go out of the earth, they must first travel
Soviet scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said: The earth is the cradle of mankind, but human beings will not lie in the cradle forever.
Musk launched the Mars colonization program, and Wuji believes that the first step for humans to get out of Earth will be the moon... No matter where the destination is, the ultimate goal of the development of the space industry is to achieve "space is so big, you can see it if you want to see it.".
Traveler looks back at Earth on the moon (cover of the science fiction novel "Moon Inn"), courtesy of the interviewee
"Before immigration, space tourism must be developed first, because it is necessary to equip the conditions needed for settlement through tourism." Wu Ji said that the development of space tourism is to start from the demand side and put forward some urgently needed technologies that will be laid out soon to pave the way for space tourism.
In the traditional conception, mankind's first extraterrestrial base should be built with a lot of government investment like an Antarctic research station, and used for scientific expeditions or space research. Wu Ji believes that with the development of space tourism, perhaps commercial extraterrestrial bases or "hotels" will be built first. Because the construction of commercial bases that can be operated first will avoid the difficulties and obstacles of the state allocating huge amounts of money to build from scratch.
"In the future, space tourists should include writers, artists, teachers, workers, farmers and other people of various social identities, and I believe that in the next decade or so, more space travelogues, musical works, literature and film works will come out." Wu Ji said that space tourism will accelerate humanity into the space age.
Source: Science and Technology Daily
Editor: Zhang Qiqi
Review: Wang Xiaolong
Final Judgement: Wang Yu