Maintaining a link between the space sector and the next generation of talent is crucial to ensuring the industry remains on a sustainable footing, said Dr Mohamed Ebrahim Al-Aseeri, the CEO of Bahrain’s National Space Science Agency.

Speaking during the Bahrain International Airshow 2022, he said: “Many space agencies are currently setting new strategies on how to engage the young generation because we have to keep our link with the young generation to make the space sector sustainable, not at the national level only but also at international level.

“In many regions of the world, people will not receive space as well as they receive other sectors because it’s considered as something new, so they don’t know about it.”

Not only rocket science

He added: “They almost think it is just like rocket science, just to the moon or to Mars, and this is what we would like to change in the mind of our people and especially the youth.

“Space sciences serve many sectors, and there are more than 250 applications that we can benefit from space and space technologies to serve us.”

NSSA

The NSSA was established by royal decree in 2014, with a vision to “promote Bahrain to a position of international prominence in the field of space science for the purpose of achieving comprehensive and sustainable development”.

As part of the NSSA’s work to bring young people into the sector, it supports the Endeavour Scholarship Programme to help applicants pursue careers as engineers and explorers in the space field.
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