DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
(AP) - Adnan al-Maimani insists he isn't looking to be a pioneer - he just
dreams of looking down on Earth. So the 40-year-old entrepreneur is paying more
than $100,000 to go on the first flight traveling to the edge of space from a
Mideast nation.
establish a spaceport in the northern tip of the United
Arab Emirates.
Virginia-based Space
Adventures - the only company to have successfully sent private citizens
into space - won't say when the flight will take place, only that it will
be within a few years.
But al-Maimani, 40, already
thinks the project will be a boost to his homeland, which has seen a boom in
construction and finance the past decade.
"It's a great social and
economic opportunity for the United Arab Emirates. It will create jobs and open
up the economy even further,'' he told The Associated Press.
Al-Maimani, who owns a
technology development firm, will ride a Russian-designed suborbital craft
called the Explorer
to the edge of space, experience weightlessness and return. The craft, capable
of carrying five people, is carried first on an airplane, from which it
launches on rocket power for the remainder of the journey.
"I'm not in it for the
adventure. My point of view is exploration. To become richer with experience,
look back at Earth and realize the potential,'' said al-Maimani, who will pay
$102,000 for the one-hour flight.
The suborbital mission
would be the first to be launched from the Middle East. Space Adventures has
not announced who else will be on the Explorer's flight.
The journey has to wait
until Space Adventures carries out plans it announced
in February to build a commercial
spaceport in Ras Al-Khaimah, the most northern of seven emirates making up
the United Arab Emirates. It said Ras al-Khaimah has promised to invest $30
million in the project and has given clearance to launch suborbital
spaceflights in its air space.
The spaceport will cost at
least $265 million, the company said, to be funded by various parties.
Ras al-Khaimah has recently
started a development push, setting up a free trade zone to attract investment
and promoting several high-profile real estate projects targeting international
investors, mainly from Europe.
A massive wave of
construction - beach-front property, hotels and shopping malls - is hitting the
emirate, a sleepy town best known for ship-building and fishing. The government
has also set up a technology park, dedicated to hosting firms in the technology
field.
The spaceport is likely to attract
further attention, helping to consolidate the emirate's position as a rival to
its larger and richer neighbors, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Al-Maimani must undergo a
four-day training course to familiarize himself with the craft, gravity forces
and other aspects of the flight.
"My family is concerned
with the safety issue, so I have to reassure them all the time,'' al-Maimani
said. "I have been interested in space exploration as long as I can remember.
... If I could fly today, I would.''
Space Adventures, whose advisers include
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and several shuttle astronauts, says 200
people have already made reservations for future suborbital spaceflights,
although the program is still in a developing stage.
Space Adventures has a partnership with
the Russian Federal Space Agency and previously sent American businessman Dennis Tito, scientist Gregory
Olsen and South African Mark
Shuttleworth on Russian rockets to the International Space Station. Each
paid $20 million.
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