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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) by BananaPhone on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:59PM

    by BananaPhone (2488) on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:59PM (#70320)

    I think it's just words but even if they put a credible effort it should wake up the existing Space capable nations to get their asses to Mars.

    Meh, probably not. The whole f'n globe of rich people (save Elon Musk) has decided to chase money at all costs. Just like Star Trek's Ferengi.

  • (Score: 2) by cykros on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:30PM

    by cykros (989) on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:30PM (#70333)

    So, what you're saying is, the way to get the rest of the world to go into space is to get the Swiss to move their banking services there first? Might be onto something here. Especially since I'm sure a good few eccentric millionaire types could be convinced to pay more for space storage due to the added "security" of being offworld...