East Africa’s envoy to outer space
Oct 25, 2009
THIS is an opportunity to promote our country and our region, East Africa in a positive way. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate that we have potential, to do the initiative. Going to space raises that perception.â€
By Henry Mukasa
THIS is an opportunity to promote our country and our region, East Africa in a positive way. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate that we have potential, to do the initiative. Going to space raises that perception.â€
Upbeat Ugandan billionaire Ashish Thakkar recently told The New Vision that this is what he perceives of his $200,000 (Sh382m) fare to outer space, past the orbit of the planets.
“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity,†Thakkar, the chief executive officer of the Mara Group and Riley Industries, said. “And this is the opportunity of a lifetime,†he said.
Thakkar’s grand parents settled in Uganda in the 1960s. His father is Ugandan while his mother is Tanzanian. However, Thakkar holds British citizenship.
Thakkar will blast into space with the Ugandan, Tanzanian and Kenyan national flags. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete last week handed over
his nation’s flag to Thakkar, with a pat on the back.
“This is a unique opportunity for us to promote the country,†President Kikwete said at the ceremony held at State House in Dar-es-Salaam. In return, Thakkar offered to produce a two-and a-half minute TV advert in Tanzania that is to be paid for by his International conglomerate – Mara Group.
“It’s a proud moment for me to be taking our flags to space. It’s an effort of our countries to take advantage of this and market ourselves as East Africa,†Thakkar said. “We need to show we can go to space.
Why shouldn’t we? We have equal rights to demonstrate and to be represented,†he said in an interview with the New Vision. When Takkar was 15 years old, he founded an IT company known as RAPS. He also set up a manufacturing plant, Riley Industries, in Mukono.
He developed a passion for real eastate and co-founded Kensington Company in 2004. Mara Group has offices in Dubai, UK, Ghana and India. It is worth over one billion dollars and employs over 2,000 people, Thakkar is joining a group of Virgin Galactic space tourists on a journey, which will take him 100km beyond the orbit into outer space next year.
The twoand- a-half hour journey will include about five minutes of weightlessness in outer space. The travelers will be sent into space by rocket after being flown 50,000 feet into the air by a carrier craft, WhiteKnightTwo.
The Virgin Galactic spacecraft will be strapped to the underbelly of a specially designed jet carrier. At 50,000 feet, the spacecraft will be released to continue the journey.
There are more tests to be conducted
before the trip. So far, there have been three successful test flights of the mother-ship WhiteKnightTwo, which will launch the spacecraft SpaceShipTwo.
Even then, SpaceShipTwo will undergo a year’s worth of test flights before it is deemed safe for tourist flights. Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines tycoon announced the Virgin Galactic venture in 2004.
He anticipated that flights would commence in 2008 but delays have pushed the date to next year, 2010. Thakkar is one of the 80 astronauts. His fellow founding astronauts include; actors, real estate moguls, business chief executives and rich adventurers.
Among them are actress and skin-care entrepreneur Victoria Principal, Hollywood film director Brian Singer and Soviet’s Lina Borozdina-Birch, who took a second mortgage of her house just to be on the trip.
Also booked are the husband and wife team of George and Loretta Whitesides, who want to spend their honeymoon on a space vehicle. The astronauts have gone through a space flight training
course at the National Aerospace Training and Research Centre in Philadelphia, US.
The group has also undergone a series of tests and weightlessness exercises in preparation for the conditions aboard the space vehicle during the flight.
The flight simulation exercises were combined with sessions in the STS-400 centrifuge, which simulates the crushing G-forces acting on the body
during lift off. “The training was an amazing experience,†said Thakkar.
‘I felt like I was really launching into
space.†The thought of blasting into
space buoys the youthful
investor. “I am a founder astronaut for East Africa. We are pioneers
and then come the voyagers,†Thakkar remarked.
THIS is an opportunity to promote our country and our region, East Africa in a positive way. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate that we have potential, to do the initiative. Going to space raises that perception.â€
Upbeat Ugandan billionaire Ashish Thakkar recently told The New Vision that this is what he perceives of his $200,000 (Sh382m) fare to outer space, past the orbit of the planets.
“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity,†Thakkar, the chief executive officer of the Mara Group and Riley Industries, said. “And this is the opportunity of a lifetime,†he said.
Thakkar’s grand parents settled in Uganda in the 1960s. His father is Ugandan while his mother is Tanzanian. However, Thakkar holds British citizenship.
Thakkar will blast into space with the Ugandan, Tanzanian and Kenyan national flags. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete last week handed over
his nation’s flag to Thakkar, with a pat on the back.
“This is a unique opportunity for us to promote the country,†President Kikwete said at the ceremony held at State House in Dar-es-Salaam. In return, Thakkar offered to produce a two-and a-half minute TV advert in Tanzania that is to be paid for by his International conglomerate – Mara Group.
“It’s a proud moment for me to be taking our flags to space. It’s an effort of our countries to take advantage of this and market ourselves as East Africa,†Thakkar said. “We need to show we can go to space.
Why shouldn’t we? We have equal rights to demonstrate and to be represented,†he said in an interview with the New Vision. When Takkar was 15 years old, he founded an IT company known as RAPS. He also set up a manufacturing plant, Riley Industries, in Mukono.
He developed a passion for real eastate and co-founded Kensington Company in 2004. Mara Group has offices in Dubai, UK, Ghana and India. It is worth over one billion dollars and employs over 2,000 people, Thakkar is joining a group of Virgin Galactic space tourists on a journey, which will take him 100km beyond the orbit into outer space next year.
The twoand- a-half hour journey will include about five minutes of weightlessness in outer space. The travelers will be sent into space by rocket after being flown 50,000 feet into the air by a carrier craft, WhiteKnightTwo.
The Virgin Galactic spacecraft will be strapped to the underbelly of a specially designed jet carrier. At 50,000 feet, the spacecraft will be released to continue the journey.
There are more tests to be conducted
before the trip. So far, there have been three successful test flights of the mother-ship WhiteKnightTwo, which will launch the spacecraft SpaceShipTwo.
Even then, SpaceShipTwo will undergo a year’s worth of test flights before it is deemed safe for tourist flights. Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines tycoon announced the Virgin Galactic venture in 2004.
He anticipated that flights would commence in 2008 but delays have pushed the date to next year, 2010. Thakkar is one of the 80 astronauts. His fellow founding astronauts include; actors, real estate moguls, business chief executives and rich adventurers.
Among them are actress and skin-care entrepreneur Victoria Principal, Hollywood film director Brian Singer and Soviet’s Lina Borozdina-Birch, who took a second mortgage of her house just to be on the trip.
Also booked are the husband and wife team of George and Loretta Whitesides, who want to spend their honeymoon on a space vehicle. The astronauts have gone through a space flight training
course at the National Aerospace Training and Research Centre in Philadelphia, US.
The group has also undergone a series of tests and weightlessness exercises in preparation for the conditions aboard the space vehicle during the flight.
The flight simulation exercises were combined with sessions in the STS-400 centrifuge, which simulates the crushing G-forces acting on the body
during lift off. “The training was an amazing experience,†said Thakkar.
‘I felt like I was really launching into
space.†The thought of blasting into
space buoys the youthful
investor. “I am a founder astronaut for East Africa. We are pioneers
and then come the voyagers,†Thakkar remarked.