In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, ground crew check on the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou 11 spacecraft after it landed in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. A pair of Chinese astronauts returned Friday from a monthlong stay aboard the country's space station, China's sixth and longest crewed mission and a sign of the growing ambitions of its rapidly advancing space program. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, ground crew check on the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou 11 spacecraft after it landed in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. A pair of Chinese astronauts returned Friday from a monthlong stay aboard the country's space station, China's sixth and longest crewed mission and a sign of the growing ambitions of its rapidly advancing space program. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, ground crew check on the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou 11 spacecraft after it landed in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Friday, Nov. 18, 2016. A pair of Chinese astronauts returned Friday from a monthlong stay aboard the country's space station, China's sixth and longest crewed mission and a sign of the growing ambitions of its rapidly advancing space program. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, ground crew check on the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou 11 spacecraft after it landed in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Friday, Nov. 18, 20

Welcome to the second space race


James Langton
  • English
  • Arabic

We are living in the second great age of space exploration.

The first was born from the ashes of the Second World War and was fuelled by the fight for supremacy between capitalism and communism, the defining struggle of the last century.

It ended with American footprints on the Moon and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, unable to keep up the pace, both economically and technologically.

This second space race, like our world today, is more complex and multifaceted than the first. It is driven by many factors and many, many more players.

Some are familiar faces. Nasa, the United States government agency behind both the Apollo Moon missions and the space shuttle, still explores our solar system, but its budget is a fraction of the glory days of the 1960s and it is currently unable to send a human into orbit.

Russia retains its ageing Soyuz rockets as a kind of flying taxi service to the International Space Station, due to celebrate its 30th birthday next year. Its grander visions of rockets carrying the red star to other worlds decay and rust in corners of the cosmodromes in far-flung former satellite states of the USSR.

Other nations still see space exploration as an expression of national pride and ambition.

China, the world’s second largest economic power, entered the age of manned space flight in 2003 with its Shenzhou programme. China expects to begin the construction of its first space station next year and talks of putting men (and women) on the Moon within 15 years.

India also uses space technology to demonstrate its rising influence. While the world’s seventh largest economic power has not yet committed itself to manned space flight, its rockets have lifted dozens of satellites into orbit, creating a commercial space programme worth tens of millions of dollars.

It would be fair to say that the space ambitions of China and India have not greatly seized the imagination of the world beyond those two countries. Yet there is a palpable sense of excitement about space and its potential once more.

When Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the Moon in July 1969, the United Arab Emirates existed only as a vision of its founders, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed.

Forty six years later, the UAE is planning to become the first Muslim nation to send a mission to Mars, placing a research satellite in orbit around the Red Planet.

The orbiting spacecraft has been named Hope, or Al Amal in Arabic, and it is intended to reach Mars in 2021, the 50th anniversary of the UAE.

Hope is an appropriate name, representing both the spirit of space exploration and the country’s optimism for the future. The announcement of the UAE’s Mission to Mars made headlines around the world, as did the announcement in February by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, that the UAE was proposing to build a city on Mars by 2117.

It was not that the source of these announcements was unexpected or that the ambitions were seen as improbable. Rather, the home of the world’s tallest building and a country that has opened its arms to the potential of everything from 1,000-km/h hyperloop trains to 3-D printed buildings and passenger taxi drones is where most people would expect to find the future.

This openness to ideas and technologies - no matter how seemingly far-fetched - is what characterises the new space age. Increasingly its successes come from private capital, either operating alone or in partnership with governments, hard-pressed to convince their taxpayers and voters that venturing beyond our world is better than solving the problems they face on it.

Not that the government sector has not enjoyed its share of the glamour. The world celebrated the European Space Agency’s successful Rosetta mission when it placed the lander Philae on the surface of a comet in November 2014.

The cheers were even louder when Nasa successfully woke up its New Horizons spacecraft after an eight-year and 4.8-billion-kilometre journey to Pluto. Meanwhile, Cassini-Huygens, another unmanned probe that is a collaboration between Nasa, the ESA and the Italian Space Agency, will end its 20-year grand tour of our solar system with a controlled crash into Saturn in September.

Mankind remains in low Earth orbit, though. The colonisation of Mars is a tantalising prospect, even if the date for mankind’s first steps on the Red Planet seem a movable feast.

It is the Moon that seems closer on the horizon. The Lunar XPRIZE, sponsored by Google, offers US$20 million for the first successful privately-funded landing on the Moon, using an unmanned rover that must travel 500 metres and broadcast high-quality images. The four remaining teams must blast off by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, US space policy vacillates with regime change and the fortunes of the economy. President Barack Obama abandoned a pledge by George W Bush to return to the Moon by 2020, to concentrate on the Orion spacecraft, essentially a bigger version of the Apollo capsule that will allow the US to send its first astronauts into space since the ending of the shuttle programme in around 2023.

Under the Trump administration, the policy as outlined by vice president Mike Pence last month is now to send US astronauts back to the Moon and, in his words: “Boots on the surface of Mars.” The specifics of both missions, though, remain unclear.

What both President Trump and President Obama have recognised is that the exploration of space is now better achieved in partnership with the private sector. Boeing and Lockheed Martin together form the United Launch Alliance (ULA), which offers three launch vehicles and is currently working on Vulcan, a heavy rocket expected to make its first flight in 2017.

Boeing and the ULA are also working on the Space Launch System, a heavy lift rocket intended to replace the space shuttle for manned flight and with a capability of carrying spacecraft with the potential to reach the Moon and even Mars. Boeing is also developing the CST-100 Starliner, a crewed capsule designed to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and which is scheduled to launch for the first time in 2018.

Where the public imagination has been truly captured though, is when private enterprise declares its own objectives in space. These are the new lords of the universe, or at least the solar system, with ambitions as vast as their fortunes and quite possibly their egos.

The most visible is Elon Musk, best known for the Tesla range of electric cars but who has also created a thriving commercial rocket business called SpaceX.

Musk’s ambitions go much deeper into space. He claims to be ready to send two private citizens round the Moon next year in his (untested) Dragon 2 capsule. Beyond that he speaks of missions to Mars in 10 years, using another (untested and indeed unbuilt) spaceship he has called the Heart of Gold in tribute to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Other high-profile names include Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic suborbital space plane has been delayed after the prototype crashed in 2014, along with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Horizon is in competition with SpaceX and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who is supporting Breakthrough Starshot, an ambitious programme to send tiny “nano-spaceships” to distant star systems using light-beam propulsion.

Add in Microsoft’s Paul Allen, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google and you have a who’s who of capitalism in the information age.

These are men unused to failure, even with stakes this high. Can they succeed? At least this new space race is not for the domination of competing ideologies but a quest for knowledge. And in this race, we can all be winners.

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The biog

Job: Fitness entrepreneur, body-builder and trainer

Favourite superhero: Batman

Favourite quote: We must become the change we want to see, by Mahatma Gandhi.

Favourite car: Lamborghini

The specs

Price, base / as tested Dh1,100,000 (est)

Engine 5.2-litre V10

Gearbox seven-speed dual clutch

Power 630bhp @ 8,000rpm

Torque 600Nm @ 6,500rpm

Fuel economy, combined 15.7L / 100km (est) 

How to avoid crypto fraud
  • Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
  • Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
  • Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
  • Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
  • Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
  • Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
  • Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
Ruwais timeline

1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established

1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants

1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed

1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.  

1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex

2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea

2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd

2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens

2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies

2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export

2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.

2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery 

2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital

2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13

Source: The National

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

65
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%3Cp%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%201.9km%20King%20Salman%20Boulevard%2C%20a%20Parisian%20Champs-Elysees-inspired%20avenue%2C%20is%20scheduled%20for%20completion%20in%202028%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20Royal%20Diriyah%20Opera%20House%20is%20expected%20to%20be%20completed%20in%20four%20years%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%20first%20of%2042%20hotels%2C%20the%20Bab%20Samhan%20hotel%2C%20will%20open%20in%20the%20first%20quarter%20of%202024%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20On%20completion%20in%202030%2C%20the%20Diriyah%20project%20is%20forecast%20to%20accommodate%20more%20than%20100%2C000%20people%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20%2463.2%20billion%20Diriyah%20project%20will%20contribute%20%247.2%20billion%20to%20the%20kingdom%E2%80%99s%20GDP%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20It%20will%20create%20more%20than%20178%2C000%20jobs%20and%20aims%20to%20attract%20more%20than%2050%20million%20visits%20a%20year%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20About%202%2C000%20people%20work%20for%20the%20Diriyah%20Company%2C%20with%20more%20than%2086%20per%20cent%20being%20Saudi%20citizens%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder turbo

Transmission: CVT

Power: 170bhp

Torque: 220Nm

Price: Dh98,900

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo

Power: 181hp

Torque: 230Nm

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

On sale: Now

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

Autumn international scores

Saturday, November 24

Italy 3-66 New Zealand
Scotland 14-9 Argentina
England 37-18 Australia

BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES

Friday (UAE kick-off times)

Borussia Dortmund v Paderborn (11.30pm)

Saturday 

Bayer Leverkusen v SC Freiburg (6.30pm)

Werder Bremen v Schalke (6.30pm)

Union Berlin v Borussia Monchengladbach (6.30pm)

Eintracht Frankfurt v Wolfsburg (6.30pm)

Fortuna Dusseldof v  Bayern Munich (6.30pm)

RB Leipzig v Cologne (9.30pm)

Sunday

Augsburg v Hertha Berlin (6.30pm)

Hoffenheim v Mainz (9pm)

 

 

 

 

 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs: 2019 Haval H6

Price, base: Dh69,900

Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder

Transmission: Seven-speed automatic

Power: 197hp @ 5,500rpm

Torque: 315Nm @ 2,000rpm

Fuel economy, combined: 7.0L / 100km