I am amazed by space, first and foremost by the sheer size. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe and in each galaxy there are hundreds of millions of stars. The light from each star travels at 671 thousand miles per hour, you could circle the earth 7 times in a second. Now imagine how far light travels in a year, the universe is so massive that we have to measure distance in light-years. As we think through the enormity and diversity and the incredible processes at play within our universe, space is truly wondrous. Inspiration, hope, thinking outside of the box and new perspectives on problem-solving are critical to a sustainable and exciting future, space answers each of these.

 

The study of space can be called generally the space sciences and includes cosmology, astronomy and many other fields of research, the majority of this happen with us observing space from Earth. 

 

The business of space though happens by being in space and looking back at Earth. By using technologies in space we are able to view the various aspects of our Earth for the weather, agriculture, security, disaster management, resource management, mining, and many more applications. We also utilize spacecraft for communications and a variety of transmissions such as real-time connections, internet access, and satellite television.

 

We use space technology all through our day in many ways, even if we don’t realize it.

 

Africa as a continent does not own sufficient capacity in space technology and capability and as such is unable to fully derive the benefits of space to enhance and positively impact lives. It is my mission to play a part in establishing the necessary African capacity in space science and technology in order to drive development and maximize the socio-economic benefit from space.

 

The key to this, I believe, is collaboration. I have launched a personal passion project, Africa 2 Moon, with the objective of placing an African designed and built, low-cost radio astronomy telescope on the far side of the moon, done so through the efforts of volunteers and collaboration. We want to show that Africa can reach for the Moon, and get to the Moon!