A academic journal report on a Chinese Moon mission

NSR : Professor Ouyang and Professor Li, you both began your careers as geologists and later entered the field of space exploration. Is this a coincidence? Ouyang: Planetary science can be considered as an extension of Earth science. It uses the concepts, theories and methods of Earth science to study other planets or natural satellites. There is a discipline called comparative planetary science, which uses the Earth as the standard and interpretsother planets or natural satellites by comparing them with the Earth. Many planetary scientists in China, Europe, Russia and the US majored in geology as graduate students. Li: From this point of view, planetary science is somewhat different from astronomy. Currently, most astronomers study a celestial body as a point in space. They use spectra or other data to learn the overall properties of a star. But the planetary scientists want to know about the surface and the body of a celestial body in order to learn about its inner structure and evolutional history. Actually, astronomy is also beginning to pay more attention to the surfaces and bodies, which is the trend of future exploration. NSR : How did you join CLEP? Have there been any memorable experiences during the project? Wu: I have been engaged in the space industry since graduation from college and never changed my career direction. I love this job deeply. It is human nature to explore the unknown. Throughout these years, I have been deeply moved by the spirit of the Chinese space scientists and engineers. They work hard and cooperate well without considering personal gains and losses. It is this spirit that has made CLEP and other Chinese space projects possible. Ouyang: The Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite in 1957, opening the era of space exploration. In 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union started their lunar exploration projects. At that time, the People's Republic of China was newly established and was economically and technically 'poor and blank'. I was then an associate doctoral candidate at the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and realized that we needed to prepare for the Chinese space exploration projects, which will surely be implemented in the future. In 1958, I started to research on extraterrestrial materials such as meteorites and cosmic dust, as well as the effects of small celestial bodies impacting the Earth. These were the earliest studies of this kind in China. I led the research on the 1976 Jilin meteorite rain, which is the world's largest meteorite rain on record. In 1978, the then US President, Jimmy Carter, gifted an Apollo lunar sample to China, and I was lucky enough to take charge of the research work on this sample. During the same period, we made a comprehensive study of the space exploration plans of the United States and the Soviet Union, and preliminarily envisaged the future lunar exploration plans of China. From 1993 to 2003, I actively promoted the systematic demonstration of CLEP. I led the study of 'the Necessity and Feasibility of China's Lunar Exploration', which was completed in 1995 and evaluated as 'very necessary and fully feasible'. After that, we further designed the overall plan and phased tasks of CLEP. In 2003, the demonstration group with Professor Jiadong Sun ( Graph ) as the leader and myself as the vice-leader completed 'The Comprehensive Project Report of China's First Lunar Exploration' with six appendices, which was reported to the State Council and approved for implementation. In 2004, I was appointed as the Chief Scientist of CLEP. When the CLEP was announced in 2004, the public raised many questions such as 'Why do we explore the Moon when there are so many things left to be explored on the Earth?' and 'How much money will CLEP spend?' I suddenly realized that I have the responsibility to clarify these questions. So I began to give lectures and speeches to the policy makers, the public servants, the students of primary schools, middle schools, high schools and the universities, as well as the public at large. During the 11 years from 2008 to 2018, I gave 617 public talks about During the 11 years from 2008 to 2018, I gave 617 public talks about the Moon and the space exploration projects, covering more than 353 000 live audiences. —Ziyuan Ouyang the Moon and the space exploration projects, covering more than 353 000 live audiences. In the lectures broadcasted on the internet, the number of online audiences of each lecture reached 200 000 to 800 000. I also wrote more than 300 related education and public outreach articles and published 12 popular science books. Li: After graduating from university, I spent three years involved in research on mineralogy. After that, I became a graduate student of Professor Ziyuan Ouyang, and started to conduct research on meteorites and celestial body impact events, including research about the Moon. Following Professor Ouyang, I participated in the determination of the scientific tasks of CLEP and took charge of the design and construction of GRAS. What impressed me most in CLEP is that space projects are systematic projects that need the strong collaboration of all the involved individuals and teams.