Gravity-defying forceps heading to fiery finish
One of Hong Kong's greatest scientific achievements will be destroyed early next month when the Russian Mir space station is jettisoned into an uninhabited section of the Pacific Ocean.
Four pairs of forceps designed by private dentist Dr Ng Tze-chuen and manufactured at the Polytechnic University are the first Hong Kong-made experimental tools used on a space mission.
The 40-gram, 18cm stainless steel forceps were designed for astronauts working in zero or micro-gravity and have been used to carry out precision soldering aboard Mir since 1995.
On March 6, two weeks after Mir celebrates its 15th birthday, the space station is scheduled to stop orbiting the Earth. It is expected to fall into the Pacific Ocean about 2,500km east of New Zealand. Its functions will be replaced by the International Space Station.
Dr Ng said: 'The forceps are stowed inside cabins. They are likely to become twisted metal when they land on Earth.' But the Hong Kong team has now been given the task of designing and building a set of soil sampling tools to analyse the surface of Mars for evidence of past life forms. This mission will be carried out by the European Space Agency, which is scheduled to land on the planet at the end of 2003.
The new tools include a drill and a corer-grinder, which will be used to insert and extract material from the core of rocks near the planet's equator.
Dr Chris Wong Ho-ching, director of the university's Industrial Centre where the Mir tools were made, said he was sad to see them destroyed but was encouraged that more tools were being made for the Mars mission. 'When my students come in, I show them the tool displays. I am very proud of that. I want to tell them the only limit on innovation is our imagination.'
University of Hong Kong assistant physics professor Dr Chau Hoi-fung said scientists believed the ditching of Mir was fraught with difficulties because of its size. 'It is difficult to predict what will happen to the space station because we have no idea how hot the atmosphere will become when it comes down,' he said.
