“Too quick” was how Hamish Harding described his journey to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday. The 50-year-old UAE resident was one of six people who boarded a rocket ship owned by Blue Origin, one of several private companies creating a cottage industry out of flights that allow so-called space tourists to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and gaze upon the planet from a vantage point seen by only a few hundred individuals in human history.
For others who plan to go to space, not as tourists but as public servants, the mission will be longer, and much more gruelling. Nora Al Matrooshi, the Emirati woman who is set to become the Arab world’s first female astronaut, and her colleague Mohammad Al Mualla have, since January, undergone intensive training with Nasa, the US space agency. Later this year, they will be tested on their ability to fly in supersonic jets that can ascend from sea level to 30,000 ft in under a minute. When their training is completed, they, along with their more senior Emirati colleagues Hazza Al Mansouri and Sultan Al Neyadi, may be considered for a slot on a six-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Each of these astronaut candidates, along with their counterparts in other countries’ astronaut programmes, represents an enormous investment for their home countries as well as the international community collectively. At a time when terrestrial matters – armed conflict, political polarisation, climate change and economic crisis – seem particularly pressing, adventures beyond the atmosphere might seem like a diversion.
For others who plan to go to space, not as tourists but as public servants, the mission will be long and gruelling
But there is no better time to look beyond ourselves and lift our gaze towards the skies. For a long time, space exploration was one of the few multilateral endeavours to remain relatively unscathed by global politics. The ongoing war in Ukraine changed that, after the European Space Agency (ESA) ceased co-operation with Russia, one of the world’s largest space powers. But it cannot stop altogether – Russian cosmonauts and European and US astronauts continue to live together on the ISS, and rely on one another for their survival. Continued co-operation in this area should not only be encouraged, but accelerated. It is a recognition of humanity’s shared interests.
It is also an investment in out-of-the-box solutions for earthly problems. At the Davos Agenda, a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum, held in January, German astronaut Matthias Maurer described to the audience in a live broadcast from the ISS how experiments conducted in space continue to help tackle challenges on our planet. “When we fly around the Earth [16 times a day],” he said, “we cross over areas that are very arid and dry and I can see scars on the planet where people are digging deep to extract resources.
“So we are actively reshaping the planet. We are cutting down trees and burning down rainforests. I see the flames. I also see the flooding.”
At the physical gathering of the WEF in Switzerland last month, Josef Aschbacher, head of the ESA, told The National that one of the most important benefits of space missions is their ability to “stimulate the economy and industry”. For that reason, he said, the UAE’s own space ambitions are “quite exciting”.
The greatest responsibility for getting the world back on track, of course, lies with those whose feet remain on the ground. And there is much work for them to do. But it will only benefit them to get as much help as they can from above. And while harvesting the fruits of space travel will not be a quick process, it will certainly be a worthwhile one.