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Nigeria Joins the Space Age
nuke-alwin writes "The Age is reporting that Nigeria has joined the space age by sending a satellite into space from Russia. The satellite will be used for environmental monitoring and to keep an eye on oil pipelines."
The linked article is missing the last 3 paragraphs, included in the Washington Post version:
The NigeriaSat-1 was produced by British-based company, Surrey Satellite Technology, with the help of Nigerian technicians trained in Britain, Olaniyi said.
The Russian Kosmos-3M rocket that lifted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome with NigeriaSat-1 carried five other satellites with it - two from Russia, and one each from Turkey, Britain and South Korea.
A team of 15 Nigerian scientists and engineers will control their country's satellite from a ground station in Abuja during its five to seven year life-span, Olaniyi said.
Read the article. Appearantly, this satellite was developed by a British company (for what seems to be a really good price) with some "British-trained Nigerain scientists".... it seems to me like the Brits made a sattellite with some Nigerians either on the team or managing or staring through a glass window... who knows.
I'm just wondering, when designing a satellite has been done by a group of college students, when there are university courses that you can take and more or less come out knowing how to make a basic satellite... how impressive is this, really? I'm sure that there are Nigerians (either people born Nigerian that immigrated or Nigerian citizens who were wealthy and just managed to get a degree and a job) who've worked on space/satellite projects before... how important is it really whose flag they paint on the thing?
I think the real focus is on what benefits this could have for Nigerian citizens - the article mentions the possibilty of agricultural benefits (gathering information on climate/sources of water/land use? soil data?), as well as monitoring the oil pipeline - I don't know how effective this will be, but if it can save oil revenue and get it into the government, then this might have some solid benefits (Yes, I know that a lot of the $$ made never sees the starving masses, but, if it works as a percentage... any improvement is welcome). My only concern, then, is that there are other satellites already aloft that could have done the same thing - and Nigerian nationalism could have been fed just by constructing a ground station where the data would be downloaded (having more ground stations would help the satellite's primay user, as well) and evaluated - using Nigerian scientists and maybe even with Nigerian software.
Just my $0.02 (Enough in Nigeria to buy a decent meal -- think about it.)
Tim