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A recent report by the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna suggests that a number of locals there are starting to wonder if Kuwait could follow the UAE’s lead and set up its own national space program. Citing Dr Hala Al-Jassar, assistant professor at the Physics Department at Kuwait University, it said that establishing a space program, or at least a space agency, “is not a fantasy, it is the way of the future.”
Kuwait has a limited base of experience to draw on in this arena. In 2014, Kuwait University and the Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science signed up to NASA’s soil moisture active passive (SMAP) initiative. In addition, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research is working with NASA on its jet propulsion laboratory project.
Such programs may be limited, but they do at least represent a start. “When we start a space program, we will not be starting from scratch,” Dr Al-Jassar told Kuna. “We have the budget, the talents, the expertise and outstanding graduates.”
Sarah Amiri, deputy project manager of a planned UAE mission to Mars involving the Hope spacecraft, talks about the project during a ceremony in Dubai, on May 6, 2015. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
Whether the authorities will be so keen is another matter. Any space program is liable to be extremely expensive which, at a time of low oil revenues, tight budgets and high demands for other government services, is not an appealing prospect.
There have been occasional bouts of space-related dreaming in the past. In June 1985, Sultan bin Salman al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, was part of the crew on a Space Shuttle Discovery flight – becoming the first Arab, first Muslim and first member of a royal family to go into outer space.
But since then Saudi Arabia, like most Gulf countries, has focused its efforts on getting satellites rather than people into space. Its activities are led by the National Satellite Technology Centre, part of the King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s great regional rival Iran is involved in similar efforts, led by the Iranian Space Agency and the Iran Aerospace Research Centre.
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