By Fred Doc Nwaozor
Penultimate week or thereabouts, I reliably
gathered that China would soon launch an artificial moon in the sky towards her
quest to illuminate the country’s existing streetlights.
My
blog – Rostrum – that does not joke with technology-related matters did not
hesitate to publish the news on arrival. An old-time friend of mine Segun
residing in Italy, who is an ardent follower of ‘Rostrum’, quickly put me on
call the moment he got the mind-blowing information.
He was sceptical over China’s motive to
actualize such a weird project. He was of the view that actualization of the
goal was far-fetched, hence urged me to prove his perception wrong having
recognized that he was speaking with a tech expert who doesn’t play with
research.
In
response, I humbly asked him to jettison the mentality invariably worn by a
typical Nigerian. I tried to let him realize that an average Nigerian believes
that virtually everything is impossible as regards proposed science inventions.
I told him that though he was based in an advanced country, I was surprised
such mindset still lived in him. The rest is history as I ended up convincing
the buddy.
Lest
I digress; like I earlier stated, the night skies might soonest have a company
as being reported. The Chinese scientists disclosed that they were making
frantic effort to launch artificial satellite, precisely moon, into the orbit
by 2020. The report read that the scientists were hoping to hang the satellite
above the city of Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan
province.
The
moon, which would be essentially an illuminated satellite, will bear a
reflective coating to cast sunlight back to the Earth where it will supplement
streetlights at night. The scientists estimated that it could be eight times
more luminous than the actual moon. It would equally orbit much closer to the
Earth at about 500km (310 miles) away compared to the original moon’s 380,000km
(236,000 miles).
According to the Chief of the Tian Fu New Area
Science Society, Mr. Wu Chunfeng, “its expected brightness in the eyes of
humans is around one-fifth of normal streetlights”. He however stated that it
could assist first responders during blackouts and natural disasters.
On the economic value, Mr. Chunfeng – who said
that if the project proves successful, it could be joined by three more
additions to the night sky by 2022 – further disclosed that new moons could
save the city of Chengdu about 7.2 billion Yuan ($173 million) annually in
electricity costs.
In
his clarification, “much more testing needs to be done to ensure the plan is
viable and will not have a detrimental effect on the natural environment. We
will only conduct our tests in an uninhabited desert, so our light beams will
not interfere with any people or earth-based space observation equipment”.
As I applaud the Chinese over their dogged
quest to supplement the Moon, they must be duly informed that such an
anticipated scientific feat can only be actualized by involving all the needed
research works as well testing techniques. They must, therefore, note that the
country wasn’t the first to register suchlike weird and amazing technological
motive.
It
would be recalled that in 1990, Russia experimented with using an orbital
mirror to reflect sunlight on some of its sun-deprived northern cities. But the
project was regrettably abandoned in 1999 after the mirror failed to unfold and
was incinerated in the atmosphere.
Similarly,
in January 2018, the American aerospace manufacturing firm, Rocket Lab launched
an artificial star into the space. But scientist criticized the satellite,
which was branded “Humanity Star’, as the reflective mini-satellite was dubbed
for contributing to artificial light pollution and cluttering in the Earth’s
orbit.
Away
from the testing processes, the environmental side-effects when successfully
installed ought to equally be taken into thorough consideration with a view to
averting any possible future health hazard among the supposed beneficiaries of
the project. Thus, further holistic consultations must be carried out prior to
the launching stage.
It’s now clear that the Chinese
scientists are not resting but invariably busy trying to commercialize every
aspect of their patents cum talents. So, it wouldn’t be an overstatement if one
asserts that in no distant time, the Asian country is likely to emerge as the
world power.
We
must acknowledge that the point China is today took a very rigorous pathway. A
lot of processes were duly involved before they got to this stage. It suffices
to say that this is not rocket science as some of us may presume. Everything
pertaining to science and technology requires adequate time, energy, research
and resources.
It’s
on this premise I once again challenge the Nigerian government to endeavour to
borrow a leaf from China. If we look inwards, we’ll definitely discover that
there are tremendous talents imbedded in our various citizens as well as
patents belonging to several indigenous institutions in the country. But the
major challenge these individuals and entities face remains lack of enabling
environment to thrive.
Intriguingly, sometimes when a Nigerian
indicates interest to bring a change in a certain area of the country’s
technological plight, some bad eggs would rather contribute in killing the
patent on arrival, perhaps owing to selfish mindedness or business interest.
Most of the country’s importers would perceive such inborn invention as an
enemy to their respective businesses.
This
indicates that for us as a people to get it right regarding technology,
governments at all levels must wear the required political will like clothe. Think
about it!
Comrade Nwaozor, tech expect and activist, could
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