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UAE Bets Big On Space Tech To Diversify From Oil

OPEC’s third-largest oil producer, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is shooting for the moon—quite literally—as part of its space strategy to diversify its oil-dependent economy. 

The UAE will launch by 2024 the first-ever mission of an Arab country to the Moon, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, said on Tuesday. 

“We are launching the first-ever Arab mission to the moon by 2024. The lunar rover will send back images & data from new sites of the moon that haven’t been explored by previous lunar missions. The gathered data will be shared with global research centers & institutions,” Sheikh Al Maktoum said. 

“The rover will be 100% manufactured and developed in the UAE by Emirati Engineers. The UAE will be the fourth country in the world to send a mission to explore the moon. We will continue our contribution to the global pursuit of knowledge for the benefit of humanity,” he added.

The UAE, one of OPEC’s key producers and most influential members, has a National Space Policy aiming to support and protect its national interests and vital industries, and contribute to the diversification and growth of the economy. 

Related: Oil Bulls Return As OPEC+ Reassures Markets

In July this year, the UAE sent a historic first mission to Mars, sending the probe Hope, which is expected to arrive on Mars in February next year. 

Despite the fact that the UAE economy is relatively diversified when compared to other Gulf oil producers, it, too, suffered a hard blow from the latest oil price crash and needed to replenish its reserves urgently. In August, the UAE also became the nation hosting the Arab World’s first nuclear power plant, which is already operational and connected to the grid. 

With the start-up of Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in Abu Dhabi, the UAE became the first country in the Arab world, and the 33rd nation globally, to develop a nuclear energy plant to generate electricity, helping the oil-rich emirates to move towards electrification of its energy sector and decarbonization of its electricity production, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said in August.

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By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

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  • Mamdouh Salameh on September 30 2020 said:
    Under the inspired joint leadership of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan the president of UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Ak Nahayan , Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and deputy commander of UAE armed forces and Sheikh Rashid bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, the UAE is indeed shooting for the moon figuratively and literally.

    The UAE will launch by 2024 the first-ever mission of an Arab country to the Moon, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said on Tuesday. “The lunar rover will send back images & data from new sites of the moon that haven’t been explored by previous lunar missions. The rover will be 100% manufactured and developed in the UAE by Emirati Engineers. The UAE will be the fourth country in the world to send a mission to explore the moon,” Sheikh Al Maktoum said. This follows UAE’s historic mission to Mars in July this year expected to arrive on Mars in February next year for the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the UAE.

    In so doing, the UAE is following in the footsteps of its great ancestors. Today, in almost every aspect of our daily lives, we are indebted in many ways to the Arab contributions to the sciences. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the vast contributions, scholarly achievements and innovations of the Arab/Muslim era began to be translated into Latin. These were, in later centuries, to form the foundation of our modern civilization.

    There was hardly a single aspect of scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages that did not have an Arab connection. And the fields were vast. The study of astronomy by Arab astronomers led to great advancements in this field. Basing their assumption on an ancient Middle Eastern hypothesis that the earth was round, astronomers calculated the circumference of the earth to be 32,844 km (20,400 mi) and its diameter 10,465 km (6,500 mi) – almost coinciding with our modern measurement. This at a time when Europeans believed that ships sailing too far into the ocean would fall off the edge of the flat earth into the sea of darkness.

    Arab scientists, working in search of a formula, which would convert baser metal into gold, evolved alchemy into what later became known as chemistry. Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan, known as Geber in the West, was the most famous scientist in early chemical research and was labelled as the ‘Father of Chemistry’.

    The 13th century Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari in one of his books (A Compendium on the Theory and Practice of Mechanical Arts), an unsurpassed work on Arab mechanical engineering, gives a true insight into Arab mechanical technology.

    Even more than mechanics and engineering, breakthroughs in mathematics were one of the main Arab contributions to Western civilization. Without the simplicity and flexibility of the Arabic numerals and the decimal system, along with the concept of the zero, Western science would have been almost impossible.

    The decimal system was one of the most important breakthroughs in mathematics. And it was Arab scholars working with Hindu numbers who fully developed the system and put it in practical use. The Arabs were responsible for introducing the system to Europe where it was quickly adopted by such early mathematicians such as Gerbert, Fibonacci and others studying the natural sciences.

    Physics, Chemistry, biology, Medicine and other related sciences all have been advanced by the Arab innovations in mathematics, the decimal system. Even today’s computer which uses the binary system based on “0” and “l” is a practical application of the mathematical system pioneered by Arab scholars.

    The famous scientist-philosopher, Ibn Sina (980-1037), known in Europe as Avicenna, was the greatest writer of medicine in the Middle Ages. His encyclopedic work was Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine) which was translated into Latin in the 12th century under the name The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna became one of the most authoritative medical works in all the medical schools in Europe.

    It was only in the 19th century that some Western scholars acquired sufficient objectivity to admit openly that much of European learning was based on the knowledge that the Arabs had brought to the still developing continent.

    One of the first modern historians to recognize the importance and impact of the Arab scientific contributions to the study of world history and western civilization was George Sarton (1884-1956), a Harvard Orientalist who is considered the father of the history of science. His, “An Introduction to the History of Science”, was one of the first works to give Arab culture its due in regards to world civilization. As Sarton explains: “European science owes its existence to the Arabs”.

    Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
    International Oil Economist
    Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London

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