The Great JT said:
Well I'd imagine going to another planet, likely for the eventual outcome of colonization, has some scientific significance...
But that's not the case. This is an unmanned mission, not unlike what has been done multiple times before. It will add nothing to scientific consensus most likely, as that's not the goal. I am willing to bet it will be foreign technologies, specialists, and engineers running EVERYTHING. This isn't a sincere attempt to create a better future... this is a smoke screen to cover systematic abuses against secular and formal education in other Arab states. It's a costly smoke screen, but they can afford it.
Everyone knows the UAE funds campaigns of terror that directly, and purposefully, tries to keep as many Shias and Christians as illiterate (if not, dead) as possible in the Arab world. Even the US government no longer tries to hide or bury the fact. We know this ...
This isn't a scientific venture, it's a way to divert attention of what's happening in Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and likely Iran, too, if Iraq and Syria continues to fall into chaos. So the exchange of one unmanned probe, we have millions of children denied education and safety.
If the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc donated a TRILLION dollars EACH purely to thereotical technologies development, it would still likely not cover the longterm blow to academic thought and the active reduction of world intelligentsia. Much less cover the massive cost in lives and livelihoods.
As I said before, as long as the situation continues you will not see another muslim with a Nobel prize for great works in scientific endeavour. 1.4 Billion muslims, 2 muslims with Nobels for Science ... the only way you could even rationalize this massive brain drain is that some people are intentionally trying to keep other people from being educated.
