The National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA, on 19 June, 2024, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Space Exploration and Research Agency, SERA, to send the first Nigerian to suborbital space.
SERA, a Delaware, USA, based company with the slogan, “A Space Agency for Everyone,” is picking a Nigerian among six persons it will send to space.
SERA plans to use Blue Origin, the space tourism company owned by Jeff Bezos. The capsule is powered by Shepard rocket.
The candidates must be 18 years or older, and will be democratically picked from countries whose citizens have not flown to space. SERA will bear the full costs for the spaceflight.
Nigeria’s space agency, NASRDA, established in 1999, had planned to send the first Nigerian to space by 2019, directly or using another space agency like NASA, but this was not feasible.
It also planned to build and launch a satellite from home by 2025, but postponed it indefinitely. By 2024, only US, Russia, China, India, Japan, UK, Israel, Iran, North Korea and EU have launch capability. Africa, not just Nigeria, cannot, and has never launched a satellite.
Africa has at least 52 satellites, all launched abroad.
Nigeria has seven satellites.
NigeriaSat-1, her first satellite, was launched on 27 September, 2003.
NigeriaSat-2, an equivalent microsatellite was co-launched with NigeriaSat-X, which was home-built, on 17 August, 2001.
NigComsat-1, a communications satellite, was launched 13 May, 2007.
It de-orbited and was replaced by NigComsat-1R on 19 December, 2011.
There was EduSat-1, an experimental satellite, on 3 June, 2017.
Finally, DELSAT-1, a military satellite was launched on 22 December, 2022.
Nigeria’s first satellite is number six in Africa.
There was Nilesat-101 from Egypt launched on 28 April, 1998.
South Africa’s Sunsat launched on 23 February, 1999.
Nilesat-102 launched on 17 August, 2000.
Morocco’s Tubsat C launched on 10 December, 2001.
Algeria’s Alsat-1 which was launched on 28 November, 2002, before NigeriaSat-1 on 27 September, 2003.
Blue Origin’s flight is little more than space tourism, as some people say, where the ‘astronauts’ enjoy few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth, 62 miles above the ground.
Egyptian, Sara Sabry, was on it on 4 August, 2022, and became the ‘first African woman’ in space.
Who is the first African in space is contentious.
The first man in space is Russian, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The first American in space is Alan Shepard on 5 May, 1961.
The first black man in space is Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, a Cuban national, who, with a Russian cosmonaut, spent eight days in space in the Soviet Salyut-6 Space Station. He travelled on 18 September, 1980.
The first African-American in space is Guion Bluford on 30 August, 1983. The first African-American woman in space is Mae Jemison on 12 September, 1992 (first woman in space is Russian Valentina Tereshkova on 16 June, 1963; first American woman in space is Sally Ride in 1983 – she is white).
Patrick Baudry, a white French national, was born in Cameroon, West Africa, on 6 March, 1946. He flew in NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery to orbital space from June 17 – 24, 1985, but is reported as the second French in space, after Jean-Loup Chretien. Some people still regard him as the first African astronaut.
Mark Shuttleworth, a white South African, is widely seen as the first African in space. He was born in Welkom, South Africa, on 18 September, 1973, and travelled to the International Space Station on 26 April, 2002, where he spent eight days.
By 2024, nationals of 47 countries have been to space.
Apart from being a first Nigerian, which is commendable for ego, there is hardly any record anywhere else that a first Nigerian astronaut stands to make or break in space.
From a strictly science point of view, and not wishing to dull the national passion, such sponsored space tourism adds very little to a nation’s growth in the space industry.
photo credit: Dr Matthew Adepoju.
