On the evening of March 15, a lecture given by Prof. Anu Ojha, Director of National Space Centre (NSC), was successfully held at Yongman Theater under the organization of the School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering. The lecture was entitled “Space, So what?” and focused on space science.
 

On the stage, Prof. Ojha, who was humorous, opened the door of space travel for everyone and slowly revealed the story: "Since the Soviet Union sent astronaut Gagarin into space, mankind began to explore space step by step."

In the speech, Prof. Ojha greatly praised Armstrong, the American astronaut who left the human footprint on the moon for the first time, for his incredible achievement. "The manned moon landing is a very tough space mission. To this day, only 24 people have gone to the distant moon, and everyone else is at most flying near the surface," said Prof. Ojha. Then he vividly revealed the difficulty of moon landing by giving an example—with a thin line on the globe held by him, and the other end of the thin line in the hands of an audience who pulled it farther and farther until to the backstage. Prof. Ojha pointed to the thin line across the stage and said, "This is the real Earth-Moon distance ratio."

Then Prof. Ojha introduced the work situation of astronauts to the audience. "Modern citizens always dream of being astronauts and are curious about what their home looks like in space," said Prof. Ojha. He showed a photo of an astronaut at the International Space Station. At the space station, astronauts from different countries assisted each other and stayed positive toward everyday research work. Prof. Ojha said that he was pleased to see different nations working together in the space industry. With China’s space industry vigorously developing, he believed that in the future, the European Space Agency (ESA) and China will launch more in-depth cooperation.

Later, Prof. Ojha performed a magic show for everyone – create comet at the scene! He put on gloves, added dry ice, red wine, and soy sauce in a container and stirred the mixture like a pharmacist. A few minutes later, these materials were finally made into a "big circle cake"—the theoretical model of comet materials. Prof. Ojha told everyone that just like making a comet today, we must work harder to move into space so that we can discover more and more miraculous mysteries.
 

At the end of the speech, Prof. Ojha had a question-and-answer interaction with the audience. Prof. Xu Lijun, Dean of the School of Instrumentation Science and Opto-electronics Engineering, presented a certificate and a gift to Prof. Ojha.  
 

At the end of the lecture, Prof. Ojha and his colleagues also introduced the summer courses of space science and technology of the National Space Academy in 2018. Under the framework of international cooperation in technology, Beihang University and the University of Leicester will hold their first summer school and select 20 undergraduates to study in the UK for 2 weeks. With enriched contents and elaborate arrangements, the summer school greatly aroused the students’ interests.

Prof. Anu Ojha is the director of the UK’s National Space Academy programme and the director of NSC. Regarded as the most passionate space scientist, he once worked as Principal Investigator for the Astro Academy Principia educational experiment programme carried out by British astronaut Tim Peake at the International Space Station (ISS).

Released by Li Peng

Edited by Wang Qing

Translated by He Siying