A few years back, 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 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 the blog, quickly put me on call the moment he got the mind-blowing information.
He was skeptical 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 he was speaking with a tech expert who doesn’t play with research.
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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 therefore told him that though he was based in an advanced country, I was surprised such a mindset still lived in him. The rest is history as I ended up convincing the buddy.
As I earlier stated, the world was informed that the night skies might soon have a company as being reported. The Chinese scientists disclosed that they were making frantic efforts to launch an artificial satellite, precisely moon, into 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, would reportedly 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 applauded the Chinese over their dogged quest to supplement the Moon, I made it clear that they must be duly informed that such an anticipated scientific feat can only be actualized by involving all the needed research works as well as the testing techniques. They must, therefore, note that the country wasn’t the first to register such 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 space. But scientists 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.
I could recall the avenue was used by me to 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 embedded in various Nigerian citizens as well as patents belonging to several indigenous institutions in the country. But the major challenge these individuals and entities face remains the lack of an 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 Nigeria as a people to get it right regarding technology, governments at all levels must wear the required political will like clothing.
However, as we urge Nigeria to follow suit, the Chinese government ought to be reminded that the global community still awaits the intended weird tech-driven invention.