Slashdot Mirror
Arab Mars Probe Planned For 2020
SpankiMonki sends word that the United Arab Emirates has announced plans to launch a Mars mission in July, 2020. They want to send a probe (named "al-Amal",or "Hope") that will orbit the Red Planet for several years. It will analyze the Martian atmosphere, observing clouds and dust storms to help scientists figure out how water gradually escaped from Mars over a long time scale.
[A]fter being inserted into an elliptical 55-hour orbit in the first quarter of 2021, Hope will carry out its nominal two-year science mission at altitudes ranging between 22,000 to 44,000 kilometers. From there, the mission will investigate how the lower and upper levels of the Martian atmosphere are connected. One goal is to create the first global picture of how the Martian atmosphere changes throughout the day and between seasons.
It's the UAE. The Emirates. Do you write about the "Caucasian Moon missions", or the Apollo program?
They'll probably just pay someone else to do it for them with the oil money as usual.
You know, if an Arab state is moving from Mediaeval barbarism to Enlightenment, maybe it would be a good time to say something positive.
Five years to get from no rockets to an interplanetary orbiting probe. The video they produced clearly shows the launch from somewhere near UAE, so they're not just going to hire an existing launch-proven company/state to give their satellite a ride. Ambitious. Highly collaborative with the existing science community. Aces. There's a woman as Co-I on the project - well done. They're not going to try and land, good idea. And the not-landing part will fill in some pretty significant gaps in mars atmospheric science. The only true unknowns are how many freshman US legislators will become outraged and demand a congressional hearing.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Quite a lot of people will benefit form this "arab" mission i guess. Other sources mentioned a contract between Abou dhabi and France for the formation of experts in the CNES center of Toulouse.
I think it is a good thing they invest their money and their pride in this kind of stuff. More global funding for science and also some arab kids will be able to identify with something they will be proud of and doesn't involve blowing up people or some retarded religion.
So another country wants to develop space capability, and this is what Slashdot has to say about it? A bunch of half-assed racist remarks? It's not just shameful, it's lame. Of all places, here we should be celebrating people choosing to take part in scientific progress, not getting involved in ethnic or regional pissing contests.
Pop quiz: what is the top Arab engineering school? Alright too hard. Name *one* Arab research university.
Now answer this question: does the fact that most people find these questions hard reflect on *Arab* ignorance, or their own?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I have no idea what the top German/Chinese/Russian/Israeli engineering schools are either, still there are many more Arabs driving German cars, than the other way around.
Really? You've never heard of Beijing University? Or the University of Heidelberg? Does "Max Planck Institute", "Moscow State University", or "Tel-Aviv University" ring a bell? Well then why not "King Saud University" or "Cairo University"?
As for the production of cars, that's not a measure of a country's intellectual attainment; it's a measure of a country's industrialization. Show me *any* region that has a resource extraction dominated economy that designs automobiles. I can name just *one* off the top of my head, and that's Iran.
There's an automatic assumption people make that when others disagree with them it's because they're stupid or ignorant. You can see that in the recent debate over the Iranian nuclear deal. There's an implicit assumption that the Iranian government is a bunch of uneducated, provincial hicks. Now I think Ali Khamenei is a terrible person, but it's not because he's ignorant. He is, in fact, superbly educated by any reasonable standard. As are many leaders in the Iranian government and opposition. The Iranian foreign minster Dr. Zarif holds three advanced degrees from US universities.
This kind of bigoted thinking is going to get us into trouble. Iran is not an Arab country, but it gets lumped in with Arab countries in American perception as an intellectually backward Muslim backwater. This is a dangerous attitude to take. Iran has substantial intellectual and technological resources to draw upon. Despite their names differing by only one letter, Iran is not Iraq. While Sadaam wasted his money on showy wonder-weapons like super-guns, the Iranians have built a fleet of advanced diesel subs that can operate in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. They have formidable industrial capability, including indigenous aerospace, automotive and electronic industries. While there is little doubt we would win in an invasion of Iran, it's far from clear it'd be the kind of cakewalk we had in the Iraq invasion.
Americans need to write this down and paste it in their hats: just because someone doesn't think like you doesn't guarantee he's ignorant or stupid.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.