AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Lately, it seems like there's a new rocket launching into space every few days. The world's billionaires and superpowers are vying to outdo each other. Well, a new player has entered the space race. Last month, the African Space Agency officially opened its doors in Cairo. But they're not aiming for the moon or Mars - at least not yet. Instead, the new agency wants to use space technology to make life on Earth better.
To tell us more about the program, we turn to Temidayo Oniosun. He's a Nigerian space scientist, as well as the founder and director of the company Space in Africa. Welcome to the program.
TEMIDAYO ONIOSUN: Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: So a lot of countries in Africa are dealing with extreme challenges right now, from poverty to armed conflict. How do you make the case that investing in space can make people's lives better on a practical level?
ONIOSUN: Yeah, actually, when you look at most of the problems that the continent is facing today, a lot of it can be addressed with better information and better data. And that's the sort of value that you get from space technology. So you talked about conflict, you talk about border issue, farm yield and even industry challenges - when you look at each of these, there's an element of space technology use case in them.
You know, you can monitor borders from satellite technology. Surveillance can help with armed conflict. You can monitor infrastructure. You know, we're having a lot of issues around mining in Africa today. A lot of these are what you can actually address with better information and better data.
RASCOE: I wanted you to kind of tell us about how the new space agency can help when it comes to that issue of information and also with, like, climate change and extreme weather. Like, do you have some examples?
ONIOSUN: One of the issues that Africa is facing today is that we don't have a lot of ground stations providing data for weather, environmental pollution and environmental monitoring. And so we have to rely on satellite because satellite provides better coverage, wider coverage. And so a lot of this data also flow to the end user. So sometimes the end users are farmers. Sometimes the end users are fishermen. Sometimes the end users are insurance companies that are providing premium for farmers or for fishermen. Through the agency, now, the goal is to bring all of this fragmentation together and institutionalize some of this program in a way that, you know, when they test certain services, let's say in Ghana, they can take the same solution and expand it across the continent.
RASCOE: Is the African Space Agency more focused on - is it about launching satellites, or is it more about using existing satellites in a better way?
ONIOSUN: The priority of the African Space Agency is to leverage space technology to make life better for Africans. So currently, we have a handful African countries with national space program. But as you may know, space technologies are very expensive. And so, majority of the countries with even national space program, they are struggling to, like, finance their infrastructures and their use cases. The idea behind an African space agency is to bring all of these resources together to run a continent-wide space program.
RASCOE: Is there something in particular that you're very excited about when it comes to the future of the African space industry?
ONIOSUN: I think I'm mostly excited about the opportunity for all the African countries to work together. In the past, this has been very challenging, and, you know, most countries were just developing the program in isolation. But I'm excited about the possibility of everyone pulling resources together, everyone collaborating together, for the greater good of the continent.
RASCOE: That's Temidayo Oniosun, founder of Space in Africa. Thank you so much for joining us.
ONIOSUN: Thank you very much.
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