USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [NIgerianWorldForum] Nigeria, the African space race and a president’s galactic ambition

We can't pretend otherwise: space has always been cool. But right now, it's really cool.

Since the high point of the moon landings (pun fully intended), the space race calmed down a little as the superpowers either disintegrated or occupied themselves with other things. No one's been back to the moon in decades, and the ongoing work of the International Space Station (ISS) doesn't seem to have captured the public imagination in quite the same way (David Bowie covers aside).

But in the last year or so, there's been a flurry of new space-related activity. Virgin Galactic has sold all its tickets for space trips, and is in the final stages of testing their own rocket. A Dutch production house is planning a reality TV series in which contestants will win a one-way ticket to set up a human colony on Mars. The Mars Rover expedition has been an unprecedented success, sending back never-seen-before images and data from the surface of the red planet. Nasa is talking about sending more men to the moon, or maybe even women – times have changed, after all.

And more countries are getting in on the act. China is developing its space program at a rapid pace, just this week sending three astronauts on another manned space flight. This is in preparation for building their own space station, which would be the first time an individual country had its own permanent, manned presence in space (the ISS is an international effort). India has launched a couple of satellites, and cabinet this week endorsed plans to send an orbiter to Mars by in 2014.

The latest nation to get bitten by the space bug is Nigeria. This may seem unlikely – Nigeria has a reputation for many things, but not for cutting-edge zero-gravity technology. You'd be forgiven if you thought the closest Nigeria had got to space was its cameo role in District 9, where thoroughly dislikeable Naija gangsters sold cat food to helpless aliens (this is a sore point; the Nigerian government was so enraged by the depiction of Nigerians in the film that they asked cinemas in the country to ban it).Read More

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