Space Tourism from UAE

RAK writes "The only company to have sent tourists into space, Space Adventures, has announced plans to develop a commercial spaceport in the UAE, from where it will operate suborbital flights. The project will cost $265 million. The Russian-built suborbital vehicle called Explorer will have the capacity to transport up to five people to an altitude of nearly 100km in space, but the project's schedule is yet to be announced."

Comments

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple reason:
The official census and thus captia does not include non-nationals (temporary workers), while the US includes not only temporary workers but also illegal immigrants (not that the census checks a persons visa). The nationals make us a mere 12% of the population and temporary workers make up the rest, illegal immigration, while it exists, is delt with via mass deportations. Nationally cannot be conferred by any process other than birth to a national father. E.G. I was born there but will never be a national.

This keeps their percapita income and other such stats artifically high. They have a penchant for being number 1. Note the 6 star hotel, the world future tallest building, the biggest construction on artifical islands, I think the worlds biggest wedding cake (I had some, it was nice), and a ton of other record attempts.

With 8 1/3 times the reported population contributing to national production and energy use it's not hard to be the highest percapita user (desalination and aluminum refining are a combined effort and it's very very energy intensive, hence everone using water is using energy (the cold water flows quite hot due to the ambient temprature, midday, you might burn yourself showering)) considering these differences in calculating the stats I heartily conferr back status of most wasteful nation to the U.S. As a side note, #3 Kuwait, might do just about the same thing as the UAE, They're analagous nations right down to the flag.

-Daniel

Re:attraction.

[Bombula]

I live in the region (Oman, actually, which is much nicer than UAE), and while much of what you say about Dubai is correct, there are some finer points to be aware of that - at least in my opinion - make things even worse.

First, the labor problems apply only to unskilled expatriates from other countries who fail to uphold human rights as they apply to laborers: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand are the primary culprits. Western expats, by contrast, can usually get assistance from their embassy or consolate if something goes seriously sour.

Second, the reason why things go sour is that many employers keep their employee's passports. Westerners can and usually do refuse to cooperate with this, especially Americans (for whom it is illegal to relinquish property of the US government to any foreign interest, as I understand it). Once your passport is in someone else's hands, you're pretty much stuck. I have a Swedish friend who got caught in a nasty bait-and-switch deal after giving over his passport, and who got next to no help from his consolate in the Emirates - he eventually had to be 'smuggled' out of UAE to Oman in order to take legal action to resolve things.

Third, it is very important to understand that 80% of the population of the UAE is expatriate. UAE citizens generally do not work. They are essentially absentee capitalists - owners of property and co-owners (known as 'sponsors') of foreign-owned businesses operating locally. Their guilt lies largely in their complicity with what is almost invariably Indian or Pakistani management in their companies. And Indian and Pakistani middle and upper management is, to a greater or lesser degree, controlled by the Indian and Pakistani mafias. The same 'system' is true for Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Iranian, Filippino, and other companies, but they are very much in the minority.

So it is important to realize that it is the mafia rackets who organize on the home country side to sucker these victimized laborers into going to UAE to work, and then trap them once they are there.

There are two underlying problems: the UAE government tolerates this crap, and the home countries do nothing to hold their citizens and/or businesses accountable overseas (No surrise on the second point, just think 'Nike', 'child labor', and 'sweatshops'). Often this is because the same rackets control their own corrupt governments as well.

International pressure has been quite successful in bringing the UAE in line. They have recently come under serious fire for labor conditions, and they have responded quickly in many instances with legislation and brutal penalities on companies in violation.

My recommendation is that if you are willing, help make a fuss and keep stories in the news ad public consciousness, because UAE is one of the few countries that actually responds to activism, protests, and international pressure. For example, in response to international outrage at the the abhorent practice of using children (usually foreign, some as young as 3 years old) as camel jockeys, the UAE responded by immediately banning the practice and requiring - no joke - robotic jockeys to be used instead. Check BBC for the story.