In 2021, the political year of the 100th anniversary of the founding of our party, our country’s three astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, Tang Hongbo entered the core capsule of Tianhe Space Station on June 17th. ——A space station completely owned by China. This marks that my country has completely broken the Western countries' restraint on us in the use of the International Space Station in the field of spaceflight.
You should know that since the 1990s, China has applied for the use of the International Space Station jointly constructed by 16 Western countries, including the United States, Russia, Japan, and the United Kingdom, for project experiments. However, there are various obstacles in the United States. The following was not approved. Now, after the success of my country's self-developed space station, applications from 17 countries have been approved, but some countries, including the United States, have been rejected due to the insufficient value of the application.
Today, the International Space Station is about to exceed its service life. It is estimated that by 2024, only the Chinese Space Station will be transported in space, and all countries in the world need to seek cooperation from China. And this moment of exhilaration actually kicked off 35 years ago-the 863 project , launched in 1986, determined the goal of independent research and development of my country's space station.
The 863 plan is my country’s first strategic high-tech development plan. It can be said that the operation of this plan has enabled my country to break through and master a large number of internationally leading key technologies, and quickly get closer. The technological gap between New China and developed countries has given our country a strong voice in the field of modern high-tech. Its significance lies not in commercial or economic benefits, but in solving the strategic problems of insufficient accumulation in basic science and frontier science and insufficient talents in the new China for many years. It has great significance for the country's development and has an impact to this day.
Time goes back to the 1980s. With the continuous breakthrough of new technology and the promotion and application of the results in production and development, countries around the world have realized the strategic significance of high-tech industries to the country as a whole. Especially in the ten years before 1982, there was an economic depression in the West and the growth of GDP stagnated. In the case of the collapse of traditional industries, the high-tech industry was able to sustain it at an annual growth rate of more than 15%.
In this case, taking the United States as an example, cutting-edge technology investment accounts for more than 34% of the industrial industry, and emerging developing countries also list high-tech industries such as microelectronics and computers as their primary support For industry, the government raises funds to coordinate the deployment of investment, scientific research and production.
In order to help the country's industrial transformation and take the lead in the new round of competition, in the early 1980s, countries and regions around the world successively introduced their own high-tech and industrial development plans.
In 1983, India issued the "New Technology Policy Statement"; the United States announced the "Star Wars Plan"; in 1984 Japan formulated the "Basic Policy for the Revitalization of Technology"; in 1985, France and Western Europe established the "Eureka Plan" The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe formulated the "Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technological Progress". The introduction of these policies means that a worldwide new technological revolution is emerging.
and the vigorous development of the world’s new technological revolution In comparison, the investment in research and development of high-tech in China at that time only accounted for about 0.3% of the GDP, which was far lower than the 3%-5% of developed countries. In fact, at that time, although China had just begun to focus on economic construction, there was not much In 1980, it already had both traditional industries and high-tech industries. However, according to the statistics of the statistics department in 1980, the proportion of Shanghai's high-tech industries as the development benchmark was only 4%, while the national average proportion was even lower than 2%.It can be said that traditional industries occupied an absolute dominant position at the time.
This situation has made people of insight in the scientific community anxious. Due to the closed-door policy during the feudal period and subsequent wars, our country has missed the development opportunities of the first two steam technology revolutions and power technology revolutions. If you can’t follow The pace of the global scientific and technological revolution last time has narrowed the gap in high-tech development with industrialized countries as soon as possible. China will be completely left behind by the world, and the possibility of its rise will be even slimmer.
As a developing country that is just getting started, the practical problems are very prominent: has a large population, a weak industrial foundation, a poor economic foundation, and underdeveloped productivity. Faced with this national situation, scientists are paying attention to the development trend of the world's science and technology field while thinking about our countermeasures to meet this challenge.
In early 1986, the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense convened a meeting of experts and scholars from all walks of life to open a national defense science and technology plan meeting to discuss how my country should deal with this new round of technological competition.
Many scholars have proposed that we must keep up with high-tech, because with the rapid development of science and technology, we must closely keep up with the development of high-tech in order to occupy a place in international competition and quickly achieve national prosperity.
The other part holds the opposite view. They believe that according to China’s national conditions, it does not yet have the economic strength to carry out high-tech research in an all-round way. If a large amount of resources are blindly tilted to high-tech development, it will have a great impact on the country as a whole. Burden.
These two views can be said to have their own reasons.It has been at odds with each other, so after two or three years of development in other countries, the relevant departments of our country have not been able to issue substantive scientific and technological development plans. Finally, on March 3, 1986, a report entitled "Recommendations on Tracking the World's Strategic High-Tech Development" was sent to the desk of Deng Xiaoping, who was 82 years old.
This "proposal" was written by Wang Daheng, the "Father of Chinese Optics" and then Director of the Department of Technology and Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Wang Ganchang, deputy director of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, winner of the "Two Bombs and One Star Meritorious Medal", and then a full-time member of the Science and Technology Committee of the National Defense Science, Technology and Industry Commission Chen Fangyun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Space Joint signature of Yang Jiachi, an automatic control scientist and then deputy director of the Science and Technology Committee of the Academy of Space Technology of the Ministry of Aerospace.
One detail that has to be mentioned is that in order to avoid the endless disputes between different views on the proposal of vigorously developing high-tech, he is anxious about the situation and Wang Daheng walked through the "back door" for this. He found himself in technology and science. A colleague of the Ministry, Deng Xiaoping’s son-in-law Zhang Hong, asked him to forward it directly to Comrade Xiaoping.
These four experts can be said to be the Taishan Beidou of my country's science and technology circles. This proposal Deng Xiaoping attaches great importance to this proposal. Deng Xiaoping read the proposal carefully and in detail, and was deeply moved by the severe domestic and international situation mentioned in the proposal. On March 5, Deng Xiaoping personally made an instruction on the proposal: This proposal is very important. Arrange relevant experts and departments to discuss as soon as possible, and come up with opinions to make decisions based on them. Make decisions quickly without delay.
With this instruction,On March 8th, the State Council personally took the lead, once again convened the heads of various departments and experts from all walks of life to discuss the "Proposal", and decided that National Science and Technology Commission and the National Defense Science and Technology Commission should be jointly responsible, and take out our country as soon as possible. High-tech development plan. Although there are still scholars who believe that China's high-tech development may be in a dilemma, but from the general situation, everyone has a foreboding that the spring that belongs to the Chinese science and technology community is coming.
After the meeting, State Councilor Zhang Jinfu deliberately conducted in-depth exchanges with the four veterans of science who had written letters. During the exchanges, they discussed the current situation and direction of China's high-tech development, and they also touched a very heavy Question: China's high-tech development plan, how much does it need to invest?
After this question was posed, Wang Daheng and others were also very embarrassed. As a researcher, the more funding for scientific research, the better, especially for high-tech. Without strong financial support, it is difficult to make breakthrough progress. Zhang Jinfu looked at the expressions of several old scientists, and he knew it clearly. In order to dispel their worries, he said: "It's okay, I just ask you to estimate a rough figure. The next step in the State Council's budgetary budget can be planned in advance."
Several scientists who are accustomed to doing scientific research frugally calculated it, and finally Wang Ganchang said: "The country is also very difficult now, just give 200 million yuan a year!" 66strong It is calculated like this: At that time, each egg in our country was two cents, with a total of 1 billion people in the country, and each person saved one egg every year to support the development of high-tech.That's 200 million yuan.
You should know that the "Star Wars Project" announced by the United States at the time was an investment of 25 billion U.S. dollars from 1984 to 1989. In 1980, Japan invested 4.6 trillion yen in scientific research funds. In contrast, 200 million yuan was placed in The research on high and new technology is really a drop in the bucket. But these older generation of scientists really think too much for the country and the people. At that time, my country was still in the initial stage of reform and opening up, and there was a shortage of money everywhere. Their idea was to start the project with 200 million yuan, because China The technological development of China cannot be delayed any longer.
However, what they did not expect was that after the State Council’s calculations, the central government approved 10 billion in special funds for high-tech development. In that year, the total national fiscal expenditure was only 200 billion yuan. Although compared with developed countries, 10 billion funding is still insufficient, but Chinese scientists can feel the strong support of the central government.
In order to make good use of this special fund and maximize the benefits of research, starting from March, the State Council has led seven meetings in five months, bringing together 120 in various fields. Four experts formed twelve teams to conduct in-depth and detailed discussions and demonstrations. Finally, in August 1986, the "Outline of the National High-Tech Research and Development Plan" was passed and submitted to the central government.
In October 1986, the Politburo of the Central Committee held an enlarged meeting to discuss and approve the implementation of the "Outline". Since this plan originated from the letter of the four veterans of science in March 1986, it was referred to as the "863" plan. .
On November 18, 1986, China's "863" plan was officially announced, and China's first strategic high-tech research and development plan was firmly implemented in this way. According to Deng Xiaoping's opinion, the development of high-tech technology implements the policy of "combining military and civilian, with civilians as the mainstay", which also opened the way for new China to take off in science and technology.
This "Development Plan Outline" refers to the development trend of high-tech in the world and combines my country's national conditions and actual needs.15 thematic projects in 7 technical fields including biology, aerospace, information, advanced defense, automation, energy, and new materials have been selected. These fields have since become the focus of breakthroughs in our country, and scientists have vowed to keep up with and surpass the world level.
Although full of enthusiasm, people at that time could not think of what kind of technological blueprint the "863" plan would paint for China many years later.
In 1996, the 10th anniversary of the implementation of the "863" plan, the state held a 10th anniversary working conference in Beijing and carried out an exhibition of results. Through the development of the past ten years, we have started from scratch in the biological field, so that every newborn can complete the active immunization of against hepatitis B, and the average ration of the people has increased by 25 kg.
can cooperate with McDonnell Douglas in the aerospace field to produce aircraft noses. Satellite monitoring covers more than 80% of the country's territory. Especially in weather detection, the accuracy is greatly improved; more importantly, the new China The scientific research team has accumulated a large amount of research experience and started to charge the frontiers of science and technology in the world.
Over the past ten years, more than 1,200 scientific research results have been obtained through the "863" program, of which nearly half have reached the international level, and have obtained more than 200 domestic and foreign patents, creating nearly hundreds of billions of benefits for the country. In that year, the "863" plan included the marine high-tech field in the development plan.
In 2001, which is the 15th anniversary of the implementation of the "863" plan, Beijing Exhibition Center once again held the 15th anniversary achievement exhibition, and by this time the "863" plan has reached nearly 7,000 research projects, and won More than 2,000 patents; trained dozens of Academy of Sciences or Academy of Engineering academicians, thoroughly put China's high-tech development on the fast lane.
at the beginning of the article,The development of the Chinese space station " Tianhe " originated from the second-ranked "space technology" in the "863" program. In 1992, the Party Central Committee decided to implement the "921" project and determined the "three-step" development plan for the manned space project.
The first step is to launch a manned spacecraft and conduct space application experiments. This step was in October 2005, after Shenzhou VI carried , Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng successfully conducted multi-day space flight tests. Announced a successful ending.
The second step is to complete the astronaut out of the capsule, carry out the rendezvous and docking of the spacecraft, launch the space laboratory, and solve the problem of short-term human care. This step is in my country’s "Tiangong-2" space on July 19, 2019. The laboratory successfully completed the task and returned to the earth along the designated route.
The third step is to break through the large-scale problem of long-term human care on the space station. With the smooth deployment of the "Tianhe" space station and the successful entry of the space station, the third step has also taken a critical half. I believe it will soon be a complete success as planned.
In 2015, with the vigorous development of science and technology in my country, the state reformed the management model of scientific research programs. For this reason, the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the "Plan on Deepening the Management Reform of Central Financial Technology Programs (Special Projects, Funds, etc.)". In early 2016, various scientific research project plans managed by various ministries and commissions were integrated into a national key research and development plan. This also means that the 863 program managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology has completed its historical mission.
At that time, the 863 program has been in operation for 30 years, and its contribution to the development of high-tech in my country is obvious to all. At the beginning of its release, the goal of narrowing the technological gap with other countries in the world has been achieved.Even in the fields of biology, aerospace, and marine technology, it has gone from being a chaser to a leader. Without 863, there would be no scientific and technological progress in China today.
