Emirati astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri discusses Lunar Gateway as ISS successor

Gulf News

The Lunar Gateway, announced on January 7, 2024 — the first planned space station to orbit the moon — will eventually replace the International Space Station (ISS) in the coming years, according to Emirati astronaut Hazzaa Al Mansouri who is also Astronauts Office Manager for Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai.  Speaking at a session during the 16th edition of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2024 on Friday, Al Mansouri said: “NASA and various space agencies around the world are now shifting their attention on orbiting to the moon. Our eyes are on Mars and if we are looking at Mars, we need to go beyond the International Space Station (ISS). For example the ISS orbits Earth at an average altitude of approximately 250 miles, travelling at a speed of 17,500 mph. It orbits Earth every 90 minutes.”  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/hazza-al-mansoori-lunar-gateway-to-eventually-replace-iss-in-the-future-1.100806916  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #astronaut #Emirati

Transcript

00:00Three things that you have to focus on in your life.

00:06Your mindset, your body and your soul.

00:09I'm really glad to be here today and to participate in this session with the kids and to be in

00:15this role is really important.

00:17We are learning from different countries and agencies around the world what they are doing,

00:24what they did achieve in the past two or three decades and we learn from that.

00:31Here in UAE we started where the others already stopped and we continue that journey.

00:36So we are looking forward to be part of the bigger picture and to learn more and to train

00:44more.

00:45As astronauts we are looking forward to be part of Gateway in the future and we are already

00:51participating as a country to build the airlock for the Lunar Gateway.

00:56As astronauts we need to train and to understand how to conduct these type of missions because

01:02it's going to be new missions for us and we are really excited about these new programs.

01:09Here in UAE we are focusing now at Mohammed Barad Space Center to train and prepare astronauts.

01:15For the younger generation I would say we are injecting more of our like experience

01:21in the curriculum of education in the schools and that's really important because it's like

01:26a spark and planting a seed in their minds.

01:30It's possible, you can do it, you need to do X, Y and Z to achieve that goal and that's

01:35really important because from that they are going to continue and they are going to build

01:39up on that.

01:40We are always emphasizing STEM education because STEM education is important for human space

01:45flight in general I would say because to be an astronaut maybe if you need to have

01:50a background in aviation, engineering or technical or scientific background that's really crucial

01:56and important.

01:57NASA and the different agencies around the world they are now focusing and shifting from

02:02being in low Earth orbit to back to the moon and orbiting around the moon to make it as

02:08a new station.

02:09From there we can observe the impact of being away from Earth because living there for 30

02:17days it's really impactful and it's going to have a lot of challenges and that's the

02:21important thing because in the future we want to go to Mars and to reach that end goal we

02:26need to first to go the first step to go a little bit beyond International Space Station

02:31and to go to orbiting the lunar surface or the moon itself it's really important.

02:39NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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