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Dive deeper into the week’s biggest stories from the Middle East and around the world with The National’s foreign desk. Nuances are often missed in day-to-day headlines. We go Beyond the Headlines by bringing together the voices of experts and those living the news to provide a clearer picture of the region’s shifting political and social landscape.
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Thursday Oct 03, 2019
Thursday Oct 03, 2019
At 2.59pm UAE time on Thursday the 3rd of October 2019 Hazza Al Mansouri, the first Emirati in space touched down on Earth after spending 8 days at the international space station.
For the last eight days Al Mansouri was speeding around the earth at 7.66km/hour completing approximately 16 orbits a day. During his time there in zero gravity, Hazza conducted experiments relating to the perception of time in microgravity and the effects of space on the body’s cardiovascular system.
But now he’s back. And his visit sparked the imagination of a country. Host Suhail Rather looks at the mission and what is next for the UAE. He spoke to James Langton, contributor for The National who was in Kazakhstan covering the departure of Hazza from Baikonur and Salem Al Marri, Assistant Director General for Scientific and Technical Affairs at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre about their objectives and their plans for Mars. He also spoke to Mikolaj Zielinski, a UAE resident from Poland and a Mars One candidate. Mars One is a Netherlands based project that is raising money to be one of the first to send humans to Mars on a one way trip to colonise the red planet.