Your book Pale Blue Dot is a good one. The others are too. In China, people talk about them everywhere—on TV book programs, in podcasts, and in videos. A lot of people recommend them, and I think part of the reason is simple: they can understand what you are saying. That kind of clarity only comes from someone who truly knows the subject.

I grew up in a small town on China’s northwestern frontier. About 25 years ago, when I finished middle school, there was a trend: everyone filled out autograph books for classmates. One of the questions asked about your dream.

The first time I answered it, I wrote: astronaut.

I still don’t really know why.

Only much later, after hearing more and more about you, did I start thinking back on that answer and asking myself: why did I write that? At the time, I had barely been exposed to popular science about space. The movie Short Circuit already felt futuristic enough to me. I had spent more time looking into astrology than astronomy.

At first I used my birthday on the Chinese lunar calendar and concluded that I was an Aries. I read the personality description and thought: yes, that sounds exactly like me. I believed it was accurate. Then one day I saw a classmate’s astrology book, the kind that looked very serious and authoritative, and there it was in black and white: use the Gregorian calendar—the solar calendar. Suddenly I was a Taurus instead. I read that description too.

It also sounded exactly like me.

That was when I began to doubt the logic of astrology. Later I came across a story about three scholars traveling to take the imperial exam. They met a fortune-teller and asked which of them would pass. The fortune-teller slowly raised one finger and said only that the answer could be understood but not spoken.

The explanation came afterward: that one finger could mean almost anything. One person passes. One person fails. One pair passes. One pair fails. All three pass. All three fail. Nearly every possible outcome is somehow covered. So is it accurate? Maybe studying that kind of thing is a discipline in itself, but I stopped believing in it.

So what was the real reason I wanted to be an astronaut?

Was it the games I played? Metal Max? No. Romance of the Three Kingdoms II: Overlord? Also no. Dune II? Not entirely, though the desert did have monsters.

If I had to guess, it was probably StarCraft.

In StarCraft, the Protoss and the Zerg were both alien lifeforms, and long ago they had come from the same origin before diverging down different evolutionary paths. The Zerg chose a tech tree centered on rapid reproduction. The Protoss prioritized science and technology: warp travel, psychic control, distortions of space and time.

Maybe a Protoss carrier is not as indestructible as the droplet in The Three-Body Problem, but warp technology is far beyond moving at 0.15 times the speed of light. Before you even arrive at someone else’s planet, your own home might already be destroyed. In war, speed matters most.

So was that what I wanted when I dreamed of becoming an astronaut? To see alien warp technology for myself?

I can’t say for sure.

Looking back now, even if my brain wanted it with all its strength, my body probably never could have handled it. Even if money were not a problem, I suspect I would fail before ever reaching space—during the acceleration needed for the first cosmic velocity.

I get sick on a swing. Dizzy, nauseated. If I rest for a long time and then go to an amusement park, one ride is enough to finish me off. A roller coaster, a giant pendulum—actually, even one of those is already too much, so there is no need to mention both. I have never dared try them.

Every atom in my body may have come from stars that spun and accelerated without rest, but I myself cannot adapt to spinning or acceleration. Cold sweat, numb fingers—and yes, I can even feel that way in an ordinary four-wheeled vehicle sometimes. The fluid dynamics of the vestibular system, the liquids inside the cochlea and inner ear: that is probably a lifelong weakness I will never conquer.

And still, what of it?

If the chance ever came, I still wouldn’t want to give it up.