Nigeria may be experiencing one of its most difficult times in history as the economy struggles while government has runs been running around seeking loans from foreign nations.
The struggling economy has also impacted the well-being of the masses with many homes now living from hand to mouth. Even the Buhari administration known for its allergic to reports against its government, had on several occasions, admitted that the country is indeed struggling with extreme poverty. This however, does not deter the country from aiming high.
A recent report published by The Nation, claimed that Nigeria like the United States, Russia, China and recently India, has its eyes set on exploring the moon.
The report says the country's National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), in fact, not only wants to embark on a moon mission, but also wants to take a Nigerian astronaut there for a micro-gravity research, basically on food security and some peculiar diseases of interest to Nigeria and the African race.
Director, Engineering and Space Systems of the agency, Prof. Olufemi Agboola said: “You know their properties very well; then you can begin to make your own.”
Head, Media and Corporate Communications of the agency, Dr. Felix Ale said Nigeria is working seriously on sending astronauts to the moon.
“It is our desire to produce an astronaut for this country and the purpose is to go to the moon and carry out an experiment that will be of great benefit to the country”, Ale said.
However, the Acting Director-General of the Agency, Mr. Jonathan Angulu, said from all indications, Nigeria is far behind in achieving its dream.
According to him, the biggest concern of the agency is to see how it can get the Assembling Integration and Test Centre (AITC) completed because that will guide them towards greater achievements in space technology.
Angulu added: “We also need to ensure that our ground station keeps running. Unfortunately, most of the equipment we have are obsolete and we are trying to see how we can upgrade them. The Federal Executive Council, 10 years ago, approved the project (Assembling Integration and Test Centre), civil work and the equipment was supposed to run simultaneously.”
Prof. Agboola also revealed that the cost of achieving the dream is enormous because it is cheaper to take a satellite to space than to take human beings. Satellites, he said, do not have to breathe when it gets there and if it gets crushed or spoilt, it can be replaced while humans cannot be replaced.
He added that for humans to go to space, more time will be spent training them and the cost of the training to survive space and the journey to space is more expensive than sending a satellite there. Also, astronauts are preferred to be high level scientists or engineers and must know how to fly. So, it’s going to be a handshake between pilots in the Air Force, scientists and engineers..
