In an interview with CNN anchor and correspondent Julia Chatterley, UAE Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology, and the Chair of the UAE Space Agency Sarah Al Amiri discusses the UAE’s mission to be a global leader in space, how it is cleaning up debris in space and helping avoid future conflict between competing space race nations.
Key Quotes:
On private sector participation in the UAE Space industry:
“We are actually encouraging our engineers and our scientists and our researchers and also the financial units as well to start investing in space to transfer on their capabilities there, and we’re supporting them with contracts.”
“We have a space fund that has been announced this year. We have two major projects that we are guaranteeing off take agreements to those young companies that are establishing the sector. Of course we will never do this in Silos. The UAE will continue to play as a global player as will our private sector.”
On UAE’s mission to become a global space leader:
“We continue to ensure that we are responsible in our access to space.”
“We are responsible in our global dialogue to ensure that there’s transparency and cooperation to ensure that we’re creating the necessary impact and outcomes in terms of development and to ensure that global dialogue and global legislations moving forward.”
On Climate being a key emergency:
“Right now it’s too late to solve the climate change issue. If we don’t solve the space issue within the next three years, and have the mechanism to be able to deal with debris, the mechanism to agree that we will not cause any conflict or even scattered and sustainably access space only then will we be able to realize the full potential of that. And the time to act is now we cannot wait a year from now. We cannot wait for a decade when the problem is staring us in the face.
That’s why one of the calls of actions that we all had during the Abu Dhabi Space Debate is the time to act is now and we’ve all taken it forward to be able to have it on our national agendas and on our international agenda.”
On the need to continue to collaborate as space faring nations:
“Rarely do we bring in regulators and policymakers and also diplomats. Space is ever becoming an area that needs to be discussed. And dialogue needs to be pushed forward on the global sphere so that we can actually harness space for humanity, rather than making it the next front for disruption.”
On space nations working together:
“We’re pushing to ensure that emerging space nations such as the United Arab Emirates, and existing space nations who have been doing this for decades upon decades, and have pioneered same thing with companies, so the companies that have again, been doing this for decades upon decades, and then the new entrants into the space field.”
“We need to start working together. We need to draft a more modern mechanism of working together and ensuring that waste does not dominate the space sector. And waste does not stop us from being able to access space.”
Credit : CNN
