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UAE Plans to Send First Arab Spaceship to Mars by 2021

posted by janrinok on Thursday July 17 2014, @01:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-luck-with-that-voyage dept.

AnonTechie writes:

At a time when space exploration has become a competition between world powers, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to send an unmanned probe to Mars by 2021, which will be the Arab world's first mission to another planet.

A new UAE Space Agency will be created to coordinate the UAE's growing space technology sector and to supervise the mission. The mission will be led by Emiratis and will expand the nation's human capital through knowledge transfer from international partners, as well as increasing human knowledge about space exploration and distant planets.

"The UAE Mars probe represents the Islamic world's entry into the era of space exploration. We will prove that we are capable of delivering new scientific contributions to humanity," UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan said in a statement Wednesday.

Do you think this is likely? I do not know of any country which was able to launch such missions in only 7 years.

 
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:23PM (#70292)

    if they really want to proof that having "islam" as a religion doesn't hinder scientific questioning and progress then really close your borders now and reopen them after the craft has made it into mars orbit. else i assume it was bought from non-islam-ics and worse(?) people who don't believe that god exists?
    srsly though i wish somebody would come up with a ISO-standard for space exploration of sorts. non binding of course.
    but it would be perfect for a case like this: no real use, just bragging rights.
    the standard would lay out long term plan and would involve some standards. compare it to lego blocks.
    so if you want to "shot soemthign into outerspace because we can!" but don't really know what to do with it, then consult this ISO-long-term plan thingy and contribute to it.
    who knows, maybe with all this "by dick is also big" shooting stuff into outerspace we might get a patchworky moon-base or space station at lagrand point?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by cykros on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:40PM

    by cykros (989) on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:40PM (#70303)

    I gotta say, all this UAE = allahu akbar stuff is a little weird. Say UAE and my first thought goes to Dubai...hardly a bastion of religious extremism (unless we're calling Capitalism a religion now).