FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
China Asks International Scientists To Help Peer Review Space Station Experiments
Aug. 6, 2018 (EIRNS)—As the time draws near to start launching modules to assemble its space station, China has offered the international scientific community the opportunity to carry out experiments aboard the station. Recently it created a concrete mechanism to implement that offer. The Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST) has established a Committee on Science and Technology Experiments of the Chinese Space Station to collect, consider, and evaluate proposals from scientists around the globe. The candidate projects that the Committee recommendations will then go through the China Manned Space Agency for final disposition and integration into the station.
The CAST Committee is made up of 14 Chinese scientists, and in a further step of “opening up,” scientists from other countries have been invited to not only submit project proposals, but to also participate as “peer-review experts,” in evaluating proposals that are submitted for consideration. China is determined to draw on the “best and the brightest” in the international scientific community.
Conducting some joint experiments through international cooperation might also be carried out, Zhang Hongtai, president of CAST, told Xinhua.
“We are looking forward to experiments to better sustain space exploration,” said Zhang. “We also expect China’s space station to be an in-space incubator of new technologies that can improve people’s lives.”
Earlier this year, the Youth Program of Scientific Education Experiments on the Chinese Space Station was launched, to stimulate interest among mostly primary and middle school students. Nearly 200 project proposals were submitted, and a preliminary group of 30 has been selected.
