On A live television broadcast on Wednesday 10th February President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his plans.The President said he is aiming for ‘top league in space race’

As the race for space now seem to be the in thing as the countries of the Mediterreanean including the UAE which has made a successful move and some of the world billionaire class all join in this race the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has unveiled an ambitious 10-year space programme. This of course is the first for the country and brings into sharp focus Turkey’s plans to be taken seriously in this ongoing world event.

Mr Erdogan said during the television program that the first goal of the comprehensive program was to make contact with the moon in 2023, the centennial of the founding of the Turkish republic.

Hoping that this roadmap, which will carry Turkey to the top league in the global space race, will come to life successfully, he enumerated the mission sequences which missions include sending Turkish astronauts into space, building a Turkish spaceport, and developing sophisticated satellite and meteorology technology.e ,” the president said.

“Our feet will be on Earth but our eyes will be in space. Our roots will be on Earth, our branches will be up in the sky.”

Under Erdoğan’s leadership, Turkey has sought to re-establish itself as a world power. The successful expansion of the Turkish space agency (TUA) would make the country one of just a handful worldwide capable of space exploration.

The timing of the president’s announcement, on the same day that a probe built by Turkey’s regional rival the United Arab Emirates successfully entered Mars’s orbit, was not lost on observers.

Turkey founded its space agency in December 2018 after the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) made the project an election campaign promise earlier that year, but Turkey’s extraterrestrial aspirations have had trouble getting off the ground so far because of both the project’s complexity and Turkey’s economic crisis.

Critics have pointed out the astronomical costs associated with space programs, while TUA’s supporters say it will create technical and highly specialized jobs and reduce the brain drain of emigrating Turkish scientists and researchers.

The president did not share budget details for the space agency’s programming during Tuesday’s speech.

Turkey has enjoyed rapid success in domestically produced drone and rocket technology over the last few years, which has made significant contributions to military campaigns in Libya, Syria, Iraq and other Middle East Countries and Asia.

The state-owned rocket and missile manufacturer Roketsan announced it had successfully test-launched a sounding rocket into space in November last year.

In January, Erdoğan had a telephone call with Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, the private US space exploration company, about technological cooperation with Turkish companies.

In cooperation with SpaceX, Ankara launched the next-generation Türksat 5A communications satellite, which will be used for both civilian and military purposes, into orbit from the US later the same month.

A metal monolith-like structure that mysteriously appeared and disappeared on Tuesday in the south-east of Turkey turned out to be a publicity stunt related to the launch of the country’s space program.

A 3-metre-high metal slab with the inscription “Look at the sky, you will see the moon,” written in ancient Turkic script was found in a field last week by a farmer in Şanlıurfa province, near the Unesco world heritage site of Göbekli Tepe – megalithic structures thousands of years older than Stonehenge.

The structure vanished on Tuesday morning, but an image of it was projected behind the president and he referenced the inscription during his speech later that day.

When one sees the new Istanbul airport and other awe inspiring structures that decorate the landscapes of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s watch, one will not be hard put to come to the easy conclusion that this is a man who takes any project he embarks upon seriously, and makes sure he brings it to a successful conclusion.

There are unfortunately those in his land who are bent on distracting him from his set goals, but he operates like a man with a mission, taking in the real and concieved deterrents in his stride.

I love one of his speeches, that before he undertook his political journey, he had already tied his turban on his head.

This is supposed to be the wrap a devout Moslem is wrapped with when he dies. So he did not come in with the fear of death hounding him. He believes that he will die when the heavenly God that send him here calls him back.