Without the help of Russian scientists, the scientific community is feeling all kinds of pain. Climate scientists fear that they will not be able to continue their important research efforts on Arctic warming; the European Space Agency is grappling with how the Mars Rover probe will survive the long cold nights on Mars without Russia's heating equipment; the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER), built in France in cooperation with 35 countries, is also facing difficulties, and if key components cannot be shipped from Russia, the world's pursuit of clean energy may stop...
According to foreign media reports, as the scope of Sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia is getting wider and wider, the field of global scientific research has also been greatly affected. Climate, spaceflight, nuclear energy and dark matter research will all come to a standstill. Many countries have not only withdrawn funds for Projects related to Russia, but also suspended their research processes, and Russian scientists have struggled to adapt to this "tragic" status quo.
Sanctions against Russia
Drag down climate research and space exploration
Climatologists are reportedly concerned that they will not be able to continue their important research efforts on Arctic warming without the help of Russian scientists. This decoupling will be costly to both sides. Without the involvement of Russian researchers, research will not only be more difficult, but also take longer to solve problems related to climate warming.
▲ Russia's "Siberia" nuclear-powered icebreaker
In response, German atmospheric scientist Marcus Rex said that without Russia's icebreakers to provide food, fuel and other necessities for research vessels, the one-year Arctic international mission he leads in 2019-2020 will not be completed.
"It's going to hurt the course of science, and we're going to lose something," Rex said. "Without Russia, it would be extremely difficult to conduct research in the Arctic." He added, "It's going to be a disaster, the climate in the Arctic is changing rapidly, and it's not going to wait for us to resolve all the political conflicts." ”
Not only that, but the cooperation between Russian and Western scientists has become interdependent, whether in solving the mystery of atomic energy or in sending probes into space. Now, scientists say, the practice of cutting off project ties comes at a high cost to both sides, and breaking up the network of close-knit relationships is a difficult task to deal with.
▲ Russian cargo spacecraft arrives at the International Space Station (data map)
The Mars rover, which the European Space Agency plans to cooperate with Russia, is one example. Without Russian heating, the European Space Agency is working to solve the problem of the Mars Rover rover's operation on Mars. If the suspension of cooperation between the two sides becomes a permanent stop, the Russian sensors on the Mars rover to explore, search and study the Martian environment may have to be dismantled and replaced, and cannot be launched using Russian-made rockets, and the launch plan that has been postponed to this year is unlikely to be implemented before 2026.
Joseph Ashbach, director of the European Space Agency, said in an interview that "the dissolution of all project cooperation with Russia is a very complex and painful process. He added, "Interdependence on scientific research projects can create stability in scientific research results and, to some extent, deepen trust between the two countries, but we are about to lose these because of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict." ”
Nuclear and dark matter research will "stagnate"
Russia-related $105 billion in scientific research funds was frozen
If key components are not available from Russia, the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER) program, which 35 countries have collaborated on in southern France, will only be halted, and the world will stagnate on the road to carbon-free energy. It is reported that the CURRENT ITER nuclear fusion energy project is still continuing, and Russia is one of the 7 initiators of the project.
▲ ITER plan is an international large-scale scientific and engineering program second only to the International Space Station, jointly participating in the construction of the European Union and Russia, and the success of this plan is related to the future of peaceful use of international fusion energy.
Laban Koblenz, spokesman for the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor, said the project was originally an initial attempt to "build something together by different countries" and that Russia was mainly responsible for providing one of the key components of the reactor, a giant superconducting magnet that would be tested in St. Petersburg before delivery and was scheduled to be delivered within a few years.
Researchers looking for dark matter also hope that they will not lose more than 1,000 Russian scientists, because they have contributed so much to the experiments of the European organization for nuclear research CERN. JOACHIM Mnitch, CERN's director of research and computing, said sanctions should be directed at the Russian government, not Russian scientists. Although CERN has suspended Russian observer positions at the organization, "we will not let anyone return home," Mr. Mnitch said in an interview.
In other areas, Russian expertise and talent will also be missed. Adrian Maxworthy, a professor at Imperial College London, said that in his study of the Earth's magnetic field, Russian-made instruments "can do some measurements that Western-made commercial instruments can't." Maxworthy also no longer expects Russia to bring in Siberian rocks from 250 million years ago, which he was going to study.
Western sanctions against Russia have made scientific cooperation extremely difficult. In the course of their scientific work, scientists have become friends and maintained informal contact with each other, but their collaborative projects, large and small, have been suspended. The EU will freeze Russian-related project funding in its €95 billion ($105 billion) research fund and say it will not sign new contracts with Russia. In Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries, project funds involving Russia have also been withdrawn.
Russian scientists are also preparing for isolation. "Sanctions have made it impossible for us to work properly because of the lack of opportunities to work with foreign colleagues and the difficulty of continuing research," they said. The famous Russian physicist Lev Zelloni described the situation in which the suspension of cooperation in scientific research with other countries had to be described as a "tragedy", and he and other Russian scientists must now learn how to survive and work in this "unsuitable for scientific research" environment and situation.
Red Star News reporter Wang Yalin intern Guo Yue
Including Guo Yu
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