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.

Comments

This will be a historic mission.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be the first time the Arabs have used science in 800 years.

Re:This will be a historic mission.

[cheesybagel]

They'll probably just pay someone else to do it for them with the oil money as usual.

Re:This will be a historic mission.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its being built in Colorado by CU

Re:This will be a historic mission.

[hey!]

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.