This week, China announced that it plans to remove 9,110 villagers from their homes in order to make way for the construction of a giant space telescope with the express purpose of looking for extraterrestrial life.
According to CNET, the construction of the China’s telescope, which will prove to be the largest radio telescope in the world, has the potential to attract the scientific talent necessary to transform its economy.
Currently China leads the world in sending students abroad. When Chinese science and engineering students complete their PhD while studying in the U.S., they are far more likely to stay there than to return home.
China has attempted multiple times in the past to incentivize bright scientific minds to remain in China, such as a 2008 program that offered gifted scientists high salaries and high budgets. However, none of the plans got the results that China has been looking for.
China’s new plan to increase the number of gifted and lucrative scientists and engineers in their country involves displacing thousands from their homes in the Chinese countryside.
The massive radio telescope that will be erected in the space left over after these people are gone, however, will be doing much more than looking for aliens.
Because it will end up being the largest telescope of any kind in the world, the benefits are wide reaching. Many scientists will theoretically want to have a hand in working with the telescope.
This announcement comes after The Communist Party’s official newspaper ran an article called “Why did we miss the gravitational waves?” China plans on not missing the next big discovery.