When Sultan bin Salman flew on the shuttle Discovery in 1985, he was the first Arab, Muslim, and member of a royal family in space. Twenty-five years later, the discovery of a planet 500 light-years away by the Qatar Exoplanet Survey--subsequently named "Qatar-Ib"--was evidence of the cutting-edge space science projects taking place across the Middle East. This book identifies the individuals, institutions, and national ideologies that enabled Arab astronomers and researchers to gain support for space exploration when governments lacked interest. Jorg Matthias Determann shows that the...
When Sultan bin Salman flew on the shuttle Discovery in 1985, he was the first Arab, Muslim, and member of a royal family in space. Twenty-five years ...
