Space, so vast, so beautiful and so mysterious. It seems that everyone want’s to go to Mars at the moment and now the UAE (United Arab Emirates) wants to join in on that adventure too. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, I can’t say it either, is the UAE vice president and ruler of Dubai. He said in a statement that the space agency would be organizing the mission, developing the UAE’s aerospace sector, and “maximizing the contribution of space industries to the national economy.”
Maktoum also says that the UAE has already invested 20 billion dirham ($5.4 billion) in space technologies, most of this is in satellites though.
Our region is a cradle of great civilisations. Given the right tools Arabs, once again, can deliver new scientific contributions to humanity
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) July 16, 2014
“The new probe to Mars represents our Arab and Muslim world entering to the era of space exploration,” says Al Maktoum; the UAE has called for a pan-Arab space agency since 2008. The UAE are hoping that they’ll be able to send their very first unmanned spaceship to Mars by 2021 if things go smoothly.
Check out this video below for a visual representation of how the UAE want’s their mission to happen.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI8rsM6Qvpo[/youtube]Thanks to The Verge for providing us with this information.
Image courtesy of NPR.
