China needs curiosity to explore far frontiers

Source:Global Times Published: 2015-7-24 23:53:01

The first nearly Earth-size planet Kepler-452b, some 1,400 light-years away from us, was announced by NASA on Thursday and drew immediate public attention worldwide. It is another time for space enthusiasts to celebrate, coming a week after NASA's release of a series of close-up photos of Pluto.

NASA has been leading humanity's exploration of space. Its discoveries are widening our horizons and improving the depth of our knowledge. While marveling about the discovery of "Earth 2.0," many Chinese people cannot help but think about our own space technology.

We didn't ask these questions a few decades ago. When the US launched space probe Voyager 1 in 1977 and the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, few people in China asked why we could not do that, too - at that time the two countries' technological gap was too huge. But now that China has been trying to catch up, we realized how far behind our technology is.

This is a systemic lag. China's technological conditions are not ready for comprehensive exploration of outer space. We are still trying to keep up in defense technology and practical science that is more urgently needed now.

China's $200 billion annual investment in scientific research is only a third of that of the US. Beside that, our willingness and curiosity in scientific exploration are insufficient.

When news reports about China's manned space program and lunar probe came out, many people ridiculed them, arguing that the huge sums of money should have been spent on health, education and people's livelihoods. But the US was not impeded by such considerations when it launched NASA in the 1950s.

Curiosity about the unknown has been the key drive for scientific research in Europe and the US in the past centuries. Be it Columbus' discovery of the New World, or the inventions during the Industrial Revolution, curiosity always ran ahead of realistic benefits.

Curiosity is actually part of human nature, just like people's desire to eat and have sex. This is not luxury, but humanity's natural right to keep growing up.

The ancient Chinese let their imagination fly when inventing gunpowder and the compass. But in the past few centuries, we seemed to have got used to being lagging behind and learning from the West. We are not confident about ambitious or unconventional moves. Some people are worried that they may not be worth it.

Currently we need to accumulate technology and capital, as well as generally unleash the nation's curiosity.

We need public support to explore the frontiers of science. We should have the courage to catch up with the space probes launched by NASA.



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