"When you are on the ground, the motherland is home, space is a dream, and when you are in space, Tiangong is home and the motherland is a dream. This is the mainland's first female astronaut stationed in the space station and the first female astronaut Wang Yaping to go out of the capsule, how she really feels about her two space trips.
In the eyes of outsiders, Wang Yaping, as an astronaut, has infinite scenery and is the center of thousands of people, but only she knows how much hard work and hardship she has to pay in order to realize the dream of the sea of stars and the dream of picking the stars with her hands.
Fly out of the atmosphere from a small mountain village
Wang Yaping was born in January 1980, is the earliest batch of post-80s, as a Shandong girl, her figure is not particularly tall, but her eyes are always full of perseverance and courage, which may have a lot to do with her participation in labor since she was a child.
Wang Yaping's hometown is a well-known cherry producing area, so when she was a child, she often helped her parents do farm work in her spare time, in addition to picking cherries at home, she also needs to plant some soybeans to subsidize the family, Wang Yaping's parents have such a filial and sensible daughter, so that the parents and villagers of ten miles and eight towns are very envious, praising her as the intimate little padded jacket at home.
Some people may be destined to become talents, even if they are born in a small village, they can't stop it, Wang Yaping was 16 years old in 1996, which is the age of flowers, but she is not willing to just go to school normally, and then find a job to work, get married and have children, she has a great dream in her heart that has never been said.
At that time, the former Jinan Military Region Air Force Recruitment Office came to Yantai to recruit flight students, flying into the sky is a very tempting choice, Wang Yaping is very difficult to refuse, with the idea of trying it and not losing money, Wang Yaping actually passed all the exams, and the whole process smoothly made her feel like she was dreaming.
When Wang Yaping flew into the sky for the first time, she felt the vastness of the motherland and the height of the sky, but she didn't realize that her life was far more than that. Every child has looked up at the stars when they were young, and they have fantasized about being able to get up close and personal with these brilliant and charming celestial bodies, just as the poem says:
"The dangerous building is 100 feet high, and you can pick the stars with your hands.
I dare not raise my voice, for fear of frightening the people in heaven. ”
In a place like the countryside where the air quality is better, the feeling of the starry sky will be clearer and more direct, and Wang Yaping will naturally plant a dream of a sea of stars in her childhood, like most people, but the difference is that she has not placed her dream in the corner and thus forgotten.
"If you don't forget, there will be an echo. In 2009, Wang Yaping got an opportunity that everyone dreamed of, this year she passed the assessment, which was very harsh, and some people even had health problems and even life risks, but she still did it, and she successfully joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army astronaut brigade.
Chairman Mao once said: "Women can hold up half the sky." For Wang Yaping, this sentence is not just a metaphorical compliment, but a kind of realism and white description, because she really wants to support half of China's aerospace industry with her thin body.
However, successfully passing the assessment and joining the astronaut corps is only the beginning, hundreds of outstanding young people join the astronaut corps every year, but in the end they can get on our country's own spacecraft, and only a few people fly to the stars, and the elimination rate is much higher than 99%.
The fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold
Wang Yaping has a strong personality since he was a child, which makes his pilot career full of brilliance, but flying an airplane is not the same thing as being a spaceship, no matter how turbulent the plane is, no matter how many times it goes up and down, it is still within the atmosphere, but the spaceship is completely in an outer space where the vast majority of earth creatures are difficult to survive.
Not only is there no air here, there is no gravity, but it is also in an almost absolute vacuum, which can make a person explode in an instant, become a blood flower, and although protected by a spacesuit, there will still be all kinds of uncomfortable symptoms.
Therefore, it is necessary to do a lot of training before going to heaven, weeding out those who may be in danger of life, leaving the candidates with the best physical fitness and the most likely to return safely. It is of great significance for women to fly into space, and it is a big step forward in the mainland's aerospace industry, but it must not be allowed to let women go to the sky, and if they do not meet the qualifications, all other meanings are exempted.
Wang Yaping had to undergo the same training as the other male astronauts in the group. For example, the acceleration of gravity is eight times, which is achieved by the high-speed rotation of the robotic arm, which can be seen as a centrifuge.
It will be difficult for people to breathe normally as if they are pressed against their chest by a huge stone, their faces will be visibly deformed, and their noses and tears will be thrown out, but for safety reasons, there are also red buttons inside, which can be gradually stopped as long as they are pressed.
Many normal adult male astronauts can't stand it, but Wang Yaping has never pressed the red button once, Wang Yaping once said that this button does not exist in her heart, which is a belief and will that supports her.
The edge of the sword is sharpened, the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold, and decades of boring and unbearable training for ordinary people have long been honed Wang Yaping into an iron man. Now only Heaven awaits him, and only God can repay him for all that he has done.
At 5:38 p.m. on June 11, 2013, the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft began China's fifth manned space mission.
Although the whole teaching process is only 40 minutes, it has inspired quite a lot of children, not only making them yearn for space, but also showing the world the progress of China's aerospace and the power of Chinese women, and making the whole Chinese people full of expectations for the future of the motherland.
In 40 minutes, Wang Yaping did five small experiments, each of which made those of us who have been living in the atmosphere jaw-dropping and made the children cheer. And this lecture also gave Wang Yaping another title - China's first space teacher.
Wang Yaping likes this title very much, because the response to this lecture is very enthusiastic, not only many children write letters to her, but also many children have since taken aerospace as their own dream, and applied for related majors, some of her current colleagues decided to enter the industry after watching this class, this sense of achievement in teaching and educating people can not be exchanged for any honor and interests.
For the sake of "lecturing" at the expense of health
However, behind the glamorous, in addition to hard training, there is also damage to the body, and after watching the live broadcast of the astronauts returning to Earth, you will definitely have a deep impression of their haggard state.
Most of the astronauts are in a state of facial puffiness when they "walk" out and return to the ground, according to high school physics knowledge, this is because in a vacuum weightless environment, a large amount of blood will flow to the head, and after a long time, the facial swelling will naturally appear.
But these are only temporary changes, after all, the 120-pound spacesuit is not to keep warm, it is to simulate the air pressure and gravity state on the earth as much as possible, but the simulation is only a simulation after all, and it cannot be compared with the real ground environment.
Basic biological knowledge tells us that our body is composed of various systems, and the system is constantly metabolized, except for nerve cells, the cells of all other tissues and organs are almost endlessly replaced.
The same is true of bones, which seem to be indestructible and relatively "rigid", where every day old cells die in the bones and are replaced by new cells, but in the space environment, this process is destroyed.
Because osteoblasts, which are responsible for the formation of new cells, need to be stimulated by the specific gravity and stress environment on Earth to work, although a small number of cells still refuse to strike, in general, the replenishment of new cells is still stopped.
But the old cells are still dying, after all, apoptosis does not need conditions, and osteoclasts do not care much about the working environment, and are conscientiously removing the "old bones" every day, so there is bone loss.
At the most severe time, bone loss can reach 10.5%, don't think it's very little, because one or two percent may lead to osteoporosis and 10.5% bone loss, which will make the bones very brittle and even paralyzed the entire locomotor system, which is why astronauts have to use wheelchairs when they leave the capsule.
Wang Yaping once told people about her feelings after returning from space, she said that she felt that her whole body was paralyzed, her legs were weak, she couldn't stand up at all, and she needed someone to help her, like a seriously ill patient.
And Wang Yaping's feeling is not to be relieved by returning to the ground to rest for one night, but to live for a long time, daily conditioning and cultivation to recover, as for bone loss is almost irreversible, so every space trip will not be arranged for too long in our country.
The weakness is because some missions require their astronauts to not be able to eat and drink for six or seven hours, and at the same time, many missions in space require them to overcome considerable resistance to complete.
But when she learned that many children had not seen the live broadcast of the course and had to watch the replay repeatedly, she decided to go to heaven again to give a lecture to everyone, even if it would make the bones age for another ten years. Finally, eight years later, in 2021, she finally succeeded in chasing her dream again, and also fulfilled the dreams of many children who missed the live broadcast back then.
This lecture is in the Chinese space station, the name of the space station is called Tiangong, highlighting the romance that belongs to the Chinese, eight years ago she realized the dream of reaching out to pick stars for the first time out of the cabin, and this time, she is picking stars for her daughter, picking stars for countless children with space dreams, she is the mother of picking stars, but also the teacher of picking stars.
Resources:
[1] Wen Yongzhi has Lingyun ambition in his heart, and he can pick the stars in his hands - an interview with astronaut Wang Yaping, who completed the manned mission of Shenzhou 13, August 2022
[2] Wang Yaping told about the cabin: "Reach out and pick up the stars" The dream has come true!(I) Military Digest2022-10-15
[3] Wang Yaping told about the cabin: "Reach out and pick up the stars" The dream has come true! (II) Military Digest2022-11-15