The China Space Station is preparing to hold 1,000 scientific experiments, including cancer research

In April this year, China launched the core of the space station and sent three astronauts to space in June

Before April of this year, the International Space Station (ISS) was the only space laboratory operating in orbit.

China's first rover has landed on Mars-what will happen next 

However, others believe that manned space stations are costly and more for political than scientific purposes

Julie Robinson, the chief scientist in charge of human exploration and operations at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC, said: "No matter who builds and operates the platform, adding science to space is of scientific benefit to the world

"We need more space stations, because one space station is definitely not enough," added Agnieszka Pollo, an astrophysicist at the National Nuclear Research Center in Warsaw, who is a member of an experimental team that studies gamma-ray bursts

Open to the world

The International Space Station was launched in 1998 by the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada (see "Theme Variations")

Although most of the experiments conducted by the Tiangong project will involve Chinese researchers, China has stated that its space station will be open to cooperation with all countries, including the United States

In June 2019, CMSA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), which promotes space cooperation, selected nine test projects—1,000 test projects that China has initially approved—to lift off after the completion of the space station

China has previously launched two small space laboratories-Tiangong 1 and Tiangong 2

Tricia Larose, a medical researcher at the University of Oslo, who leads a project scheduled for 2026, said that the space station provides brand-new facilities and China is encouraging the use of space that has not been attempted before.

Zhang Shuangnan, an astrophysicist at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is an adviser to CMSA.

"Scientist's Game Room"

The first part of Tiangong-1's arrival was a core module called Tianhe ("Tianhe")

In the next year or longer, CMSA will launch another 8 missions to Tiangong

Paulo de Souza, a physicist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, said these will become "scientists' recreation rooms," and he developed sensors for use in space

Yang Yang, Director of International Cooperation of the Space Utilization Technology Engineering Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the space station will have more than 20 experimental racks, which are small laboratories in a closed, pressurized environment

Organic matter and dark matter

The experiment sent to the new space station encompassed many areas

Zhang and Pollo also participated in the POLAR-2 project, which will study the polarization of gamma rays emitted by large-scale and long-distance explosions, with the aim of clarifying the nature of gamma-ray bursts, which may even be gravitational waves
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La Rose plans to launch 3D spots of healthy and cancerous intestinal tissue, so-called organoids
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She wondered whether the low-gravity environment would slow down or prevent the growth of cancer cells, which might lead to new treatments
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Other projects by Indian and Mexican scientists will study the nebula’s ultraviolet radiation and Earth’s infrared data to study meteorological conditions and the driving factors of severe storms
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Laros pointed out that although many projects are collaborative projects between Chinese and Western scientists, geopolitical tensions make cooperation more difficult
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She said that Norway has not yet signed a bilateral agreement with China to give the green light to her project
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Merlin Kole, an astrophysicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who is also working on Polar-2, added that strict compliance with export regulations means that exporting electronic hardware to China will increase bureaucracy
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But DiPibo said that the tensions so far have not affected the progress of the projects selected by UNOOSA, adding that the agency is discussing with CMSA to launch more experiments to Tiangong before the end of next year
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Big Bang of Science

Some scientists believe that the manned space station is a waste-the cost of the Tiangong has not been announced, but the construction and maintenance cost of the International Space Station in the first decade is about 100 billion euros (118 billion US dollars)
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Gregory Kulacki, a Chinese security analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said: “Robot tasks can bring greater science.
Effect
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" "In China, just like in the United States, scientists want to do the best they can.
They prefer robotic missions, while the government wants to use manned space programs mainly for political purposes.
There is tension
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" 

But other researchers pointed out that although satellites provide another option for some observations, manned space stations are essential for many experiments, especially those that require microgravity
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They provide a shelter for astronauts who perform long-term observations, data processing capabilities, and perform maintenance tasks and conduct experiments
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In addition, Zhang said that in addition to accommodating experiments by researchers, Tiangong plans to test human space travel technology to support China's space exploration goals
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At present, the funds for the International Space Station can only be operated between 2024 and 2028, and Tiangong may eventually become the only space station in operation on Earth
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Tiangong plans to operate for at least 10 years, and China has plans to launch other spacecraft to work with it
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The China Sky Survey Space Telescope is a two-meter-tall optical telescope that will compete with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and will regularly dock with Tiangong for refueling and maintenance
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It will be launched in 2023, and it will have a wider field of view than Hubble when observing the depths of the universe
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