Ras Al-Khaimah: Future Space Capital of the Middle East
– Bahraini Astronomers Call for Arab Space Agency
Originally published in Gulf Financial Insider
by David Frost
Ras
Al-Khaimah is set to become the space capital of the Middle East,
with a multi-million dollar commercial spaceport to be developed by
the US company Space Adventures in partnership with the government of
the Emirate, which has committed $30
million to the project.
If the idea of being shot into
space in a rocket doesn't frighten you the price could – $102,000.
Reservations for spaceflights from
Ras Al-Khaimah are now being accepted, and already booked to go on
the first one is 41-year-old Adnan al-Maimani, owner of a UAE
technology development firm.
Initial flights will be in the
five-person Russian-designed suborbital spacecraft Explorer, which is
carried aloft on a conventional aircraft before using its own rocket
power. Passengers will experience the sensation of weightlessness
during the hour-long suborbital flight.
“I'm
not in it for the adventure,” says Adnan. “My point of view is
exploration. To become richer with experience, look back at Earth and
realize the potential.”
He believes the project will be a
big boost for his homeland, and commented, “It's a great social and
economic opportunity for the United Arab Emirates. It will create
jobs and open up the economy even further.”
Clearance to operate suborbital
spaceflights in UAE airspace has been granted by both Sheikh Saud bin
Saqr al-Qasimi, Crown Prince of the Emirate and de facto ruler, and
also the UAE's Department of Civilian Aviation.
“I
am proud to announce Ras Al-Khaimah as the site where suborbital
commercial space travel will begin and flourish,” said Sheikh Saud.
“Space Adventures is the pioneer of space tourism, which is why we
signed an agreement with them.”
Space
Adventures certainly does have solid experience in spaceflight. Since
its foundation in 1997 it has sold more than $120 million worth of
space tourist flights. In 2001 it sent American Dennis Tito to the
International Space Station aboard a Russian
Space Agency Soyuz rocket for a reported
$20 million fee, making him the first space tourist ever.
A ten-person advisory board of
experienced astronauts and cosmonauts oversees the company's
operations. Members include Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set
foot on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, and also
astronauts who have flown in shuttles and to Skylab, the first space
station, plus one Russian cosmonaut.
The
total cost of the spaceport will be at least $265 million, with
funding coming from various backers, including Texas-based Prodea
Systems, whose Iranian-American joint-founder Anousheh Ansari flew to
the International Space Station in 2006, spending 10 days there in
orbit. This made her the first female Muslim in space, the first
Iranian and the first self-funded woman to fly to the space station.
She is also only the fourth self-funded space
tourist, although she prefers to call herself a “spaceflight
participant.”
With
the planned Ras Al-Khaimah spaceport
only an hour's drive from Dubai, it could become a big tourist
attraction, just as the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida has, possibly
with features such as experiencing the G-force caused by a rocket's
acceleration, simulated in a centrifuge, and the weightlessness of a
space walk, simulated in a neutral-buoyancy tank of water.
Although the early flights from
Ras Al-Khaimah will be short suborbital journeys, the company has
much more ambitious enterprises in the pipeline, reaching far beyond
the International Space Station. Its Deep Space Expeditions Alpha
project involves a commercial spaceflight to the far side of the
Moon. Crew members will be able to view the Earth from 250,000 miles
away and experience a close-up view of the moon. Two seats are
available for the mission, costing $100 million each.
No doubt there are
ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the UAE and elsewhere in the Gulf
who could afford this sort of money, but unless there were
demonstrable benefits to any companies they owned the money would
have to come from their personal wealth.
The
next commercial space traveller will be Richard Garriott, son of
astronaut Owen Garriott. He is paying $30 million for a trip to the
International Space Station,
so possibly there could be takers for a ticket to the moon, even at
$100 million per seat.
Garriott plans to conduct
experiments in space involving protein crystallization for a biotech
company which he and his father established, therefore some
businesspeople in the GCC could perhaps get away with charging such a
trip to their company's expense account if they really wanted to.
For
those who are “only” high-net-worth individuals – and there
plenty of those in the GCC countries – a suborbital flight could be
an affordable alternative at the current price of $102,000.
When Adnan al-Maimani takes off
from Ras Al-Khaimah he will certainly not be the first Arab
astronaut.
- Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, of Saudi Arabia, was the first Arab in space, and the first Muslim, in 1985, when he flew as a payload specialist on a Discovery mission as one of a seven-member international crew. He represented the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat), and was involved in the deployment of their satellite, Arabsat-1B.
- Christa McAuliffe, an Arab-American, was killed in 1986 along the rest of the crew of the Challenger space shuttle, just 73 seconds after take-off.
- Muhammed Ahmed Faris was the first Syrian in space in 1987 on the Soyuz TM-3 mission to the Soviet Mir space station.
There are a number of Arab space
programmes, including Arabsat, the satellite communications project
which Saudi astronaut Prince Sultan was involved in, established in
1967, and also the UAE's Unified Aerosol Experiment, a
highly-technical project in cooperation with NASA (the USA's National
Aeronautics and Space Administration).
But
now astronomers in the region are backing a call for the
creation of an Arab Space Agency, among them the head of the Bahrain
Astronomical Society and vice president of the Arab Union on
Astronomy and Space Science, Dr Shawqi al-Dallal. He and colleagues
from elsewhere in the Arab world are presenting a document to the
Arab League, requesting the establishment of an agency to promote
satellites for telecommunications and other purposes and to
participate in space missions.
Perhaps another option would be to
seek the support of entrepreneurs and investment organizations in the
GCC countries for a privately funded space agency. There is no lack
of capital for projects which can be shown to offer the prospect of a
reasonable return, as the aggressive investment policies of
institutions in Dubai, Qatar and elsewhere has demonstrated.
