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Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans for space. Its astronauts on SpaceX's private Ax-2 mission are just the start, official says

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, 'Out There,' was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

to discuss the significance of Ax-2 to Saudi Arabia and the nation's plans for a bright spaceflight future. Ashemimry is a great person with whom to discuss such topics: She's a Saudi-American aerospace engineer who serves as special adviser to the CEO of the Saudi Space Commission and vice president for diversity initiatives at the International Astronautical Federation. The following conversation has been edited for length.

Every single human spaceflight program in every country is a matter of national pride; it makes people really proud for the country's achievements. But it also has direct and indirect impacts on human capital and the growth of the sector. And the beauty of a human spaceflight program, especially when you talk about the experiments, is that it brings non-space sectors into space, because some research may not necessarily be space-oriented.

Space.com: Yeah, and research is a pretty big part of Ax-2. There are roughly 20 scientific experiments on this mission, and 14 of them are led by principal investigators in Saudi, right?Six [of the science experiments] are focused on human health — specifically, the nervous system on a molecular, cellular and tissue level. Four experiments are focused on cell science, addressing inflammatory response in space and how to treat it, and that has an implication on cancer.

With all these outreach programs, there's a curriculum that is being taught to the students who will participate, and they have access to this information and what the implication of those experiments is, in terms of designing a spacecraft and so forth.Saudi Space Commission astronauts Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali AlQarni give a thumbs up while walking out to their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule ahead of launch.

 

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