Opinion | Columnists
UAE's feats shine brightly
The sons of the nation's founding fathers have gone on to achieve accomplishments that would make their forbears proud
- By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 22:38 August 6, 2009
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
As everyone knows, the United Arab Emirates - a thriving federation of seven Gulf emirates - owes its birth in 1971 and much of its subsequent growth to two exceptional men: Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai.
These two pioneering leaders have now passed into history, but the partnership they created has become the Arab world's major success story.
The UAE is today a high-tech pole of trade, economic enterprise and international communications, but also of education, culture and modernity. It is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita gross domestic product of $54,000 (Dh198,612), and controls the sixth largest oil reserves.
It is fortunate that the founding fathers produced sons who continued the partnership and made it fructify. For example, one of Shaikh Zayed's sons, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Presidential Affairs, married a daughter of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Both Shaikh Mohammad and Shaikh Mansour have often captured the international headlines with their many achievements. Dubai has long been recognised as an extraordinary place - splendidly portrayed in a recently published book, City of Gold, by the American writer Jim Krane. In turn, Shaikh Mansour, a ministerial aide of his brother President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has managed to bring off a spectacular coup by venturing into space tourism in partnership with Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and one of Britain's leading entrepreneurs.
Shaikh Mansour chairs the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government. One of the many companies IPIC controls is Aabar Investments. It is this company that has agreed to buy 32 per cent of Virgin Galactic, Branson's commercial space venture, for $280 million, and to invest a further $100 million in the company for scientific and technological research.
Aabar and Virgin Galactic are planning to build a spaceport in the UAE - the first in the Arab world. So far, seven such spaceports are being built in the United States and one in Sweden, part of the infrastructure for a suborbital space tourism industry. The deal with Virgin Galactic will give Aabar exclusive regional rights to host tourism in space, as well as giving it access to scientific research during space flights. This is perhaps the most important aspect of the agreement. No doubt, there is also the possibility of eventual military applications.
Aabar Chairman Khadem Al Qubaisi described the deal in these terms: "The significant partnership not only falls in line with Abu Dhabi's larger plans to inculcate technology research and science at a grassroots level, but also complements its aim to be the international tourism capital of the region".
Shaikh Mansour is known in Britain as the majority shareholder in Manchester City Football Club - a major brand that he has vowed to lift into still great prominence. He is also known to have made a profit of close to £1.5 billion (Dh9.3 billion) by a skilful investment, during the recent banking crisis, in the shares of Barclays Bank.
In Germany, Aabar has spent 1.95 billion euros (Dh10.3 billion) buying a 9.1 per cent stake in Daimler, manufacturers of Mercedes-Benz cars - another major international brand. In California, Aabar has purchased a stake in Tesla, a manufacturer of electric cars - further evidence of Abu Dhabi's concern to diversify its assets in preparation for a post-oil economy.
Inevitably, people will ask whether there is truly a future in space tourism. It has long been a dream of science fiction writers, but the reality of intergalactic travel still remains far out of reach.
So far, only six 'space tourists' have boarded a Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft for the journey to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian Space Agency is the only organisation in a position to offer such transport.
The first three passengers paid over $20 million each for their 10-day visit to the ISS. These flights, organised by Space Adventures Ltd, an American-based company, are strictly only for billionaires or multi-millionaires. Space Adventures Ltd is so far the only company to have sent paying passengers into space. The company is said to be working on a project to take passengers around the Moon for a knock-down price of $100 million per person.
But ordinary mortals need not despair. Cheaper suborbital spaceflights are being planned that will carry passengers up to an altitude of about 100 kilometres - that is to say, to the internationally defined boundary between Earth and space, known as the Kármán line. Such trips are expected to cost a mere $200,000 per passenger. Branson's Virgin Galactic claims to have already pre-sold nearly 200 seats for such flights.
What will these space tourists get for their money? Well, they will experience three to six minutes of weightlessness, a spectacular view of the stars and an equally spectacular view of the curve of the Earth. Not a great deal, one might say, for such a large sum of money.
But adventures such as these are beyond price.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
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