In 2007, China set off a storm of public opinion on Beidou navigation. The news headline "Tsinghua student Gao Xingxin cracked the Beidou SECOND generation code, and the traitor sought glory and gave the beidou core data to the United States" brushed the Internet, which temporarily touched the hearts of the people of the whole country and caused serious social anxiety. However, just when the people of the whole country were in a panic, Xu Ying, the youngest doctoral supervisor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Beidou navigation expert, stood up and dissolved the anxiety of the people with a relaxed and humorous tone.
Looking at Xu Ying's confident and intellectual appearance, the Chinese people could not help but think about such a question: Why are Xu Ying and Gao Xingxin, both young and promising female space system experts, on the opposite side and embark on a completely different path? And how was this storm of public opinion about Beidou defused?
Xu Ying
In the early 1990s, with the upheavals in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world's only superpower after the end of the Cold War. Conceited Americans also use their strong overall national strength and international influence to do whatever they want around the world.
It was in this context that on July 23, 1993, something happened that humiliated China, that is, the "Galaxy" incident. On this day, the United States, acting as the "world policeman," claimed that the Chinese cargo ship "Galaxy" carrying cargo bound for Iran was carrying chemical weapons-related substances, and demanded that it immediately stop moving forward and accept U.S. inspection. To this end, the United States also sent naval ships and aircraft to track and reconnoiter the Galaxy.
In the face of the unreasonable demands of the United States, our side protested and publicly stated that these goods are only ordinary goods such as stationery, hardware and mechanical parts. However, the United States ignored our resistance and complaints, and used its strong scientific and technological power to brutally block the GPS signal on the "Galaxy".
Galaxy event
You know, for a ship like the "Galaxy", GPS is the eye, and now the "Galaxy" is covered by the Eyes of the Americans, and naturally cannot continue to sail. Therefore, the "Galaxy" was forced to stop sailing and accept the inspection of the US side, which was 22 days. However, after inspection, no chemicals alleged by the United States were found. Afterwards, we demanded that the United States apologize for this, but it was rejected by the bullying United States.
This "Galaxy" incident not only caused our country to lose tens of millions of dollars due to a stopover, but also greatly damaged our international image, so that now when it is talked about, the Chinese people feel that their faces are dull. However, this incident also warns China that it must create a navigation system developed entirely by itself, otherwise China will always be pinched by the neck of the United States in the communications area.
It is in this context that Chinese scientists began to devote themselves to the study of navigation systems, and after many efforts, they finally successfully developed the Beidou satellite navigation system.
Beidou satellite navigation system
Xu Ying is one of these scientists who study the Beidou satellite navigation system. Xu Ying was born in 1983 in Renshou County, Sichuan Province, the son of a government worker and a math teacher to his mother. Xu Ying's parents are open-minded and open-minded, and rarely interfere with their children's choices, which also makes Xu Ying develop a very assertive personality.
Xu Ying has loved science and technology toys since she was a child, and after graduating from high school, she also followed her wishes to enroll in the communication engineering major of Beijing Information Engineering College. After graduating from the undergraduate, she also chose to continue her studies and was admitted to the Master's and Doctoral Degree of Signal and Information Processing at Beijing Institute of Technology, which was 6 years.
After graduating with honors, she also successfully joined the Institute of Optoelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and after another 6 years, became the youngest doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Optoelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2015, Xu Ying was 32 years old.
At this time, there is often a scene that looks very strange. Xu Ying's students are basically the same age as her, however, academically, Xu Ying is the leader and target of her peers.
Although Xu Ying always told students that in doing scientific research, do not blindly sacrifice yourself, but to complete personal ideals under the excellent conditions provided by the state, and then contribute to the country on this basis, Xu Ying has always been very diligent in scientific research, working until the early morning, and even sleeping in the office is a common thing.
Her PhD student also said that "she basically comes to work overtime every weekend". Later, the students learned that for Xu Ying, her ideals had long been integrated with the country's ideals.
In addition to her many years of hard work in scientific research, Xu Ying also has an ideal, that is, to break the boundaries between science and daily life, and encourage more people to enter the field of science and have a scientific spirit. Only in this way can the country's scientific spirit and scientific undertakings be better "sustainable development".
To this end, she also began to engage in popular science work, in various public speeches, integrating science with people's daily lives. Due to the popular science career, she also walked from the laboratory to the front of the curtain and entered the audience's vision, professional speeches, intellectual temperament and good appearance also made her affectionately known as the "Beidou Goddess" by the audience. At the end of 2016, due to her excellent science popularization work, Xu Ying was named the image ambassador of "Science Popularization China" of the China Association for Science and Technology.
On the other hand, in the study of Beidou navigation, Xu Ying has not fallen behind in the slightest, according to the website of the Institute of Aerospace Information Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as of July 2020, Xu Ying has applied for 28 invention patents, of which 16 have been authorized.
Xu Ying gave a popular science lecture
While Xu Ying was quietly paying for the research of China's Beidou satellite navigation system, another Chinese navigation expert on the other side of the ocean was doing the opposite. She is Gao Xingxin.
Gao Xingxin, a native of Harbin, Heilongjiang, studied in the Department of Fine Instrumentation of Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree, studied in the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University with a master's degree, and went to Stanford University in the United States to continue his ph.D. in the Department of Electronic Engineering after graduating with a master's degree.
Gao Xingxin can be described as an elite expert in electronic engineering. In 2005, Europe launched the first test satellite of the Galileo space system and was activated in January 2006. After the satellite was activated, Gao Xingxin's laboratory captured its civilian signals within a few hours.
Gao Xingxin
After mastering the data, Gao Xingxin alone spent a few weeks to crack the algorithm of the Galileo satellite and decode it. After she wrote her work as a paper, companies and companies around the world used her code to track or capture signals from the Galileo space system.
This experience and process of being concerned by the whole world made Gao Xingxin full of a sense of accomplishment, so that after China launched the first satellite of Beidou-1 in 2007, he repeated the same technique, once again cracked the code of beidou satellites, and personally made a receiver to obtain and track beidou satellites.
Later, she deciphered the code of China's Beidou II positioning and navigation satellite, and wrote it into a series of papers and gave it to the Americans herself. She was also recognized by the U.S. Space And Radio Commission.
However, after this news came out, it instantly triggered a storm of public opinion in China, as a Chinese graduated from Tsinghua University, Gao Xingxin actually sold his state secrets to the United States in order to please the Americans and for his fame and fortune in the United States. This act is simply a traitor to the country and seek glory, and his father, Gao Delin, who was originally the deputy director of the provincial public security department in Heilongjiang, was also dismissed from his post.
In addition to denouncing Gao Xingxin, the people are also worried about another issue, that is, if the United States has the information of Beidou navigation, will it sabotage the Beidou navigation system based on this information, thus bringing disastrous consequences to China's navigation cause?
After understanding the concerns of the people, Xu Ying, who is engaged in navigation science popularization, stood up and gave everyone a "reassurance pill". Xu Ying said that the code that Gao Xingxin cracked is a civilian code, which means that the knowledge she has learned and used is the information that will be disclosed to the whole society after the second generation of Beidou matures and is civilianized in the future.
Because of this, no special anti-cracking treatment has been done to these codes before. And although the frequency of Beidou II cannot be replaced at will, the code and algorithm can be reset. In addition, Xu Ying also said that the second generation of Beidou, like the Beidou generation, can not only locate and navigate, but also carry out data communication.
In Xu Ying's words, if you are Robinson drifting on the sea, you can use the Big Dipper II not only to tell others where you are, you can also let you come to your rescue. These data communications are encrypted, and these are not cracked by "self-employed" people like Gao Xingxin.
The application of the Beidou system in the military is even more out of reach of Gao Xingxin, and Gao Xingxin's work will not bring substantial harm to it. Xu Ying also said with particular humor that there is only one way to crack the core secrets of Beidou navigation, that is, to sit on the time shuttle machine and return to the research and development stage of Beidou navigation.
The worries and anxieties of the Chinese people were dissolved in Xu Ying's humorous tone. Looking at Xu Ying's confident and intellectual appearance on the screen, the Chinese people are also thinking about this problem. Why are Xu Ying and Gao Xingxin, both young and promising female space system experts, embark on a completely different path?
This problem is also a wake-up call to China's educational circles, that is, "morality, intelligence, physical fitness, and beauty", "morality" is always put first, ability is important, but character is more important. Even if we can respect a scientist's willingness to run away in pursuit of his ideals and better scientific research conditions, we cannot tolerate his betrayal of the interests of his motherland for his own selfish desires, because this is immorality.
Shrewd and capable as Gao Xingxin, but because he does not have good virtue, he betrays the country and seeks glory, and in the end he will only end up being condemned by the people of the country, abandoned by his family, and forever drifting away. And I believe that for a villain who can sell out the national interest for his own interests, no country dares to reuse it. People say that "science has no borders, but scientists have borders", and now we should add the sentence "Scientists have borders, but without virtue there is no country".