06-004 Tiangong Space Lectures

06-004
Tiangong Space Lectures

Hongkong is a busy city. At the time of writing, we are enjoying our Chinese New Year. As the new year day is on Sunday this year, most people in Hongkong are having a consecutive 5 days holiday.

As a Chinese parent, these holidays are not for me. I still need to bring my kids to the private tutor and other hobby classes. And school gave tons of homework to my kids to pack up their holiday. I am still thinking which day should be the right moment to start tackling all these homework. Definitely not on the new year day, but maybe the day after.

A rough calculation shows that in last year, I have spent more than $4000 HKD, around $530 USD, per month in this kind of outside school activities. I did not force my kids to join too many hobby classes, just 2 to 3 hours with their private tutor on weekdays, a weekend drawing class for my daughter and a weekly English class for my son. He is now 7 but still don’t know how to spell the word “seven”. Even on the first day of the long holiday, I was still busy bringing my daughter to her drawing class.

Hobby classes can be expensive here, especially those language classes. An English class with native English speaking teacher can be costed up to $100 USD per hour. However, some classes, like those sponsored by the government, can be very cheap. My son has once joined a one-hour-long story telling class with just $1.5 USD per session.

But what if I tell you that our government has given out a series of lectures for free to every mankind in the universe? And it happens that those lectures are also, probably, the most expensive lectures ever organized in the world?

Screening of Tiangong Space Lecture in La Salle College, Hongkong
Image Source: RTHK

Yes, I am talking about the Tiangong Space Lectures. Space lectures are a series of lectures organized on the space stations of China by the Chinese government. Up to the moment of writing, we have organized 4 lectures and a Q&A section. I am quite sure more will be coming.

The lectures were broadcasted live through China’s TV network and later uploaded to YouTube for free to watch. The video clips are dubbed in English.

In this holiday, I am going to watch one of those lectures with my kids as a kind of new year celebration. Consider the budget of each space mission, those lectures must be awfully expensive to organize. I am now spending more than 500 bucks per month for hobby classes. I have really no reason for not watching them.

I attached all the lectures below so that you can also watch.

Space lecture on Shenzhou 10 (2013-6-20, at around 10:00 Beijing Time)

The first ever Space lecture of the Shenzhou programme took place almost a decade ago, during the Shenzhou 10 mission. The lecture was held inside the now deorbited Tiangong-1 space lab. The lecturer was Wang Yaping, the second female taikonaut. She did 5 experiments in the lecture.

The programme is in 4:3 SDTV resolution because it was for broadcasting on TV channel CCTV-1. It is the primary free-to-air TV channel that covers the whole China and is one of the last TV channel to be switched to 16:9 HDTV.

First space lecture on Tiangong Space Station (2021-12-9, 15:55 Beijing Time)

Time flies. 8 and a half years later, we saw another space lecture organized by China. The lecture took place on a different space station, inside the Tiangong Space Station core module. The lecturer was still Wang Yaping. Programme is in 16:9 HDTV resolution.

Second space lecture on Tiangong Space Station (2022-3-23, 15:40 Beijing Time)

Just weeks before the completion of the Shenzhou 13 mission, we saw another space lecture took place on the Tiangong Space Station. The lecturer was Wang Yaping again.

Third space lecture on Tiangong Space Station (2022-10-12, 16:01 Beijing Time)

The most recent space lecture on the Tiangong Space Station happened during the Shenzhou 14 mission. This time, the lecture took place inside the Wentian module. The lecturers became Chen Dong and Liu Yang as Wang Yaping has returned home already.

Note: All programmes of Tiangong Space Station lectures are hours long. I set the starting point of the videos to the moment when the space lecture begins. Please move the cursor backward if you want to also watch the introductory section.

Interaction with American Students (2022-4-10, 3:00 Beijing Time)

A special question and answer (Q&A) session between the three Shenzhou 13 taikonauts and American students was held in the Chinese Embassy in U.S. in Washington, D.C. The event was officially hosted by the Chinese Ambassador of the United States, Qin Gang. Elon Musk was also featured in the event.

This kind of Q&A section is not exactly a lecture and similar activities have been done many times by other astronauts on other space stations, mainly through ham radio.

I can only find an edited version of that Q&A section on YouTube.

More questions were asked in the event. You can found some of them in this video clip. Retired NASA astronaut Donald A. Thomas also participated and gave positive comments to the event. (Click here to watch the news clip.)

However, there is one thing that worth mentioning. In English language, the event was advertised as “Q&A section” or “My questions to Taikonauts”. But in Chinese language, the event is called “Tiangong Lecture, America Branch School (天宫课堂美国分校)”. That means, we considered a Tiangong space school was officially opened in the US. This act is especially “meaningful” after the U.S. Department of State designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a foreign mission of the PRC 2 years ago and there were even voices to call them off.

Go back to the Lobby ...