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No.346

 
 
 


CHINA  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of Science and Technology
People's Republic of China


N0.346 October 20,2003
 
IN THIS ISSUE

* China's First Manned Space Flight A Complete Success

* Beijing Declaration

* Chinese People Expecting Healthier Life

* 100 Campus S&T Parks in 2005

* China Opened IMASAT F System

* Revised SARS Diagnosing Procedures

* Wuhan University with Two Space Information Projects


 
 SPECIAL ISSUES
 

China's First Manned Space Flight A Complete Success 

China's Shenzhou V manned spacecraft was launched at 9 a.m., October 15, 2003 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The spacecraft made 14 rounds of flight surrounding the earth as scheduled and returned to the earth at 6:23 early morning of October 16, 2003. Shenzhou V spacecraft has successfully realized China's first manned space flight, demonstrating China's internationally leading position in numerous key technologies applied to the spacecraft and launching rocket.

It is reported that the thermal insulation material for the external wall of the return cabin makes one of the key technologies have to be well addressed for Shenzhou V spacecraft. To make a comfortable and safe internal environment available for the astronaut, researchers have eventually chosen a low density thermal insulation material through repeated experiments as the external cover of the return cabin. The application of the material has made the internal temperature of the return cabin remain around 20C when the external part being in an environment between -100C and 3,000C.

With a design of three compartments plus an additional section, the Shenzhou V spacecraft is capable for the transportation between the earth and space.

After the successful return of the astronaut cabin, the orbiter of the Shenzhou V spacecraft was left in the space to work on its own like a satellite, which has greatly prolonged the life of the spacecraft for space applications and scientific experiments.

With a height of 2.2m, the return cabin of the Shenzhou V spacecraft looks like a room of 6 m2, the largest of its kind in the world. To ensure the safe return of the 3-ton cabin, researchers have designed a landing parachute of an area of 1,200 m2, also the largest of its kind in the world, which effectively slowed down the landing speed by 20 and more times in ten and more minutes.

Beijing Declaration

The 4-day 14th session of the Congress of the Third World Academy of Sciences closed on October 19, 2003 after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration aiming at promoting the global scientific advancement, opening and cooperation.

The Declaration points out that the scientific capacity building will play the key role in the following three aspects: 1) decreasing the poverty population and increasing people's opportunities for medical services, so as to promote the social fairness and improve people's living standards; 2) the benefits of protecting the ecological system will find the expression in the clean air, soil, water and all natural resources on the earth; 3) promoting the sustainable development of the human society and sharing S&T findings on a fair basis.

The Declaration also points out that the scientific community shall strengthen its cooperation with all walks of life and work out its own sustainable development objectives, narrowing down the gap between the developing and developed countries in S&T capacity. All the countries shall attach the great importance to the development of S&T and education, as it is the natural road leading to the prosperities. It is necessary for all countries to promote their international S&T exchanges and cooperation, helping the developing countries to address their common problems and exploring the approaches to achieve the common development.

The Declaration proposes that the Third World Academy of Sciences shall strive to expand the south-south cooperation, encouraging the developing countries who have made achievements in certain S&T fields to provide scientific research opportunities for the underdeveloped developing countries.

Convened at the time to celebrate its 20th founding anniversary, the Congress of the Third World Academy of Sciences had a crowded agenda covering working meetings, prize winners' lectures, the 20th anniversary celebration, the ministerial forum and SARS seminar among many others.

Chinese People Expecting Healthier Life

The survey results published by the Public Survey Center under the China Youth Daily on October 16, 2003 have shown that the environmental pollution, cancers and SARS constituted the three major concerns of Chinese people expecting the scientific solutions.

Of the 500 investigated adults selected on a random basis, half (50.6%) expressed that the environmental pollution control with scientific means is what they are expecting for the most from the science. This coincides with Chinese people's increasing attention to the environmental issues. In 2002, Zero Company had made an investigation on the cities mostly suitable for habitation among 2,624 citizens living in small towns over 7 provinces. The survey results have shown that the first element in people's consideration of a place suitable for dwelling is the environment factor (42.5%), followed by economic factor (21.5%). Most of the investigated made Beijing and Shanghai their first choice for the most suitable habitable place, followed by other non capital cities such as Dalian and Suzhou that are renowned for their beautiful environment.

The expectation for finding the solution to cancer treatment ranked the second with 37.9% of the investigated hoping that they would no longer fear to hear the name "cancer". 17.9% of the investigated believed that it is important to harness the SARS viruses. AIDS treatment and prolonging people's life came at the 4th and 5th place respectively with a corresponding percentage of 15.9 and 10.7.

In the meanwhile, 7.7% of the investigated expressed the hope that science may promote the development of medical science, find the solutions to difficult diseases and make people live a healthier life, which reflected Chinese people's expectation for a better health. In the same context, the earnest hope for the solutions to cancers, to the final analysis, is a wish for a healthier life.

The other issues that people hope to tackle with the help of science are: greatly improving the productivity, ordinary people may travel in space, genes, poverty, traffic, being emancipated from the housework and energy.

Of the 500 investigated, male accounted for 65.6% and female 34.4% with an average age of 32.7 and 69.2% having received at least three-year university education.

100 Campus S&T Parks in 2005

The Chinese Ministry of Education recently published the Outlines of National Development Planning for Campus S&T Parks, in which it is proposed that by 2005 China will complete the construction of 100 standardized campus S&T parks with full functions, nurture out 50 high tech industrial businesses of international competitiveness and a great number of S&T entrepreneurs and inventors.

According to the Outlines, the priorities will be placed on the construction of 100 standardized campus S&T parks with full functions, of which 50 will be built into national role model campus S&T parks and 20 into class one domestic campus S&T parks with distinguished features and strength, and several into the campus S&T parks of major international influence, making them a major component of the national technical innovation system and the most active new innovation sources in developing China's high tech industries.

The Outlines has also asked to nurture out a group of high tech industrial businesses of strong market competitiveness, of which 50 shall become the businesses of strong international competitiveness in major high tech fields such as information, biology and new materials. By 2005, the total number of high tech businesses incubated by the campus S&T parks shall reached 5,000 in number or above, with a share of proprietary high tech products in both domestic and international markets.

Priorities will also be given to nurturing high caliber personnel with innovation spirit and capacity and knowledge for economy, management and modern S&T development, developing a management contingent serving for the national S&T parks. These parks shall produce a continuous flow of capable S&T entrepreneurs and inventors through the industrial incubation and market economic practice.

China Opened IMASAT F System

On October 16, 2003, China made the official opening of its IMASAT F system before global subscribers, which marked China entering the internationally advanced rank of mobile telecommunication.

The newly opened F system is equipped with the world latest generation of digital multimedia marine information telecommunication system, fully capable for meeting varieties of application needs of sea, land and space based clients such as marine satellite based coded telephone, facsimile, telex, image transmission and internet access. China launched its F system almost simultaneously with a few developed countries and is the first developing country who has constructed its F system.

Yang Hongyi, Director, China Traffic Information Center, who is responsible for the construction of China's IMASAT system expressed that the opening of F system will not only make China's water based telecommunication modernization and marine rescuing activities fully "visible" and provide the solid support for the emergency telecommunication needs of land based rescue activities, but will also open an extended business market for IMASAT, providing extensive services for the government, defense, water resources, news media, fishery, forestry, oil industry and field activities. In addition to providing services for mainland ships, the newly opened F system is also able to provide security and business communication services for Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and adjacent countries or even for the global shipping fleets.

Mr. Yang also expressed that China will in the future strive to create a large and comprehensive public traffic information telecommunication network platform, namely China Modern Traffic Circulation Information Port on the basis of F system, so as to meet the traffic and public needs by taking advantage of the global coverage of F system and its access to the public telecommunication network and internet, and by consolidating the resources of wireless, cable and satellite based information telecommunication systems.

 NEWS BRIEFS

Shenzhou VI's mainframe ready

It is disclosed by the authorities concerned that Shenzhou VI, China's second manned spacecraft has seen the completed construction of its major components and will soon enter the phases for assembling, readjustment and testing. The new spacecraft is expected to be launched within a period of one or two years.Shenzhou VI bears basic technical similarities with its predecessor Shenzhou V. What makes it different from Shenzhou V is it will take two to three astronauts into space with more payloads for experiments and a longer flight schedule. Shenzhou VI will basically keep the same size, weight and equipment that its predecessor had. As Shenzhou V has already been designed with the capacity for three astronauts and 7-day long flight, Shenzhou VI will only see an increasing number of astronauts and days of flight.

China's manned spacecraft program is phased to complete in 20 years. Phase I is supposed to see the breakthroughs in manned spacecraft technologies. Shenzhou V and VI are literally in this phase. Phase II will work on the space lab project, establishing the space lab to be taken care of by man on a short term basis and able to run automatically on its own for a long period of time, realizing the connection between spacecrafts or target flying vehicles, and enabling the astronaut to walk outside the space lab. Phase III will see the establishment of a permanent space station able to last for 5-15 years or longer period of time.

Revised SARS Diagnosing Procedures

To provide further guidance for the SARS prevention and treatment activities, the Chinese Ministry of Health and State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicines have recently jointly published the updated version of Infectious SARS Diagnosing Procedures, which shed more light on the SARS diagnosing and treatment processes.

The Procedures has covered all important knowledge so far available for the SARS prevention and treatment including pathogenics, epidemics, pathogeny, pathogenic variations, lab examination, iconographic examination, clinic symptoms, clinic phases, diagnosing and comparable diagnosing, treatment principles, tracking and handling of the patients in the recovering phase, characteristics of children's SARS cases and associated major diagnosing and treating points, prevention and control and major literatures for reference.

On the basis of updating and modification of the Criteria for Infectious SARS Clinic Diagnosis (trial version) and the Recommended Treatment Plan for Infectious SARS, the experts of Chinese Medical Association and China Association of Chinese Medicine have jointly worked out the Procedures through summarizing the SARS prevention and treatment practices and the latest findings both at home and abroad. Experts pointed out that they have strived to make the criteria for diagnosing SARS suspects, clinic diagnosing and diagnosis confirmation as accurate as possible, so as to avoid possible wrong diagnosing. Paying more attention to the whole process of patients, especially their psychological obstacles makes one of the features of the new Procedures.

Wuhan University with Two Space Information ProjectsTwo national space projects “the Industrial Base for Space Information Technological Results under the National 863 Program” and “National Engineering Research Center for Satellite Navigation Application System Design and Integration” celebrated the ground breaking ceremony in the S&T park of Wuhan University.

With an investment over RMB 100 million and planned floor space of 50,000 and more m2 over an area of 80 mu (1mu=0.0667ha.), the Industrial Base for Space Information Technological Results under the National 863 Program has been contracted to Wuhan University S&T Park Co. Ltd. and Zhuoyue S&T Development Co. Ltd. for the construction.

In the meanwhile, China Space Long-March Carrier Rocket Technology Co. Ltd., Wuhan University, Beijing Aeronautics and Space University and the Institute of Software under the Chinese Academy of Sciences have jointly won the contract for the construction of the National Engineering Research Center for Satellite Navigation Application System Design and Integration.

It is reported that the two national space information projects that have settled down in Wuhan University will make an industrial base for space information technology of some influence both at home and abroad, and become a new growth point for the industrial development of China's space technology and the local economic development.


       Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Cheng Jiayi, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China  Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594

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