Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Expecting a liftoff – from Africa to the Moon
Cape Town organisation hopes to inspire new scientists
IT’S AN ambitious plan to send an African spacecraft to the Moon, and in doing so inspire a new generation of scientists.
This week the organisers of the Africa2Moon mission, which hopes to launch a mission to the Moon within a decade, had raised R247 000 via crowd funding for the first phase of its multi- year mission.
The project is the brainchild of the Foundation for Space Development South Africa, a non-profit Cape Town organisation established in 2009 to advance the country’s awareness of space.
The mission’s goal is to put a craft on the Moon, or in orbit around it, to transmit video images from its surface to classrooms in Africa.
Other scientific goals will be added in due course as the mission progresses.
Jonathan Weltman, the organisation’s chief executive, said the mission was a BHAG – a “big hairy audacious goal”.
“The huge leap is the idea that Africa can drag itself out of its rather dire situation by starting to talk about space exploration, by talking about ambition and exploration.”
Weltman, who studied aeronautical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, told Weekend Argus the mission would inspire teachers, pupils and university students to become passionate about science.
In so doing, it aimed to improve the country’s and Africa’s Stem, an acronym that stands for the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Africa2Moon websites states, for example: “(The) mission is being designed to inspire the youth of Africa to believe that ‘They Can Reach for the Moon’ by reaching for the Moon!”
Weltman said the organisers of the mission had purposefully upended how public engagement with space missions work.
The norm is for public engagement to start once a space mission has been successfully launched, after years of intense behind-the-scenes work by engineers and scientists. But the Africa2Moon mission wants engagement from the start, especially with children and teachers, via events and talks, and even letting the public name the mission and its mascot.
“It’s important that the public has an input in the various issues and elements of the mission proposal,” said Weltman.
“We’re going to design it so that we get the maximum benefit for Africa.”
While the spacecraft may not launch for a decade or more, smaller “precursor missions” are set to take place annually.
This year’s precursor mission is the global space balloon challenge, which will see 40 teams with members from 148 countries simultaneously fly high altitude balloons to “celebrate an age where anyone can reach the edge of space for a few hundred dollars and a few weekends of work”.
Weltman said the privatisation of space, which has seen the rise of organisations such as Space X – which builds advanced rockets and spacecraft – helped the Foundation for Space Development South Africa make the decision to launch its Moon mission.
Last year Space X, founded by South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk, unveiled its Dragon V2 spacecraft, which has been designed to carry humans into space.
“Today space is no longer the sole purview of nations,” said Weltman.
jan.cronje@inl.co.za