Simulation of UAE’s Mars 2117 city to be built in the metaverse

A simulation of the UAE’s planned settlement on Mars is to be built in the metaverse.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre is helping Bedu, a Web3 technologies company in Dubai, design the simulation.

The UAE aims to build a settlement on the Red Planet by 2117, but the primary goal of the project is to help create jobs in the country and inspire more youth into science, technology, engineering and maths careers.

The space centre will share data and information on space and Mars to help create the simulation.

“As we set our sights on ever more challenging destinations for exploration with humans and robots, innovative ideas and future thinking will be critical to helping us reach new milestones,” said Adnan Al Rais, manager of the Mars 2117 programme.

“Concepts like this will be supported by Mbrsc as we believe this will help us expand our scope of bigger possibilities.”

The space centre is also building the Mars Science City, a research facility in Dubai.

The Dh500 million project will enable research on the Red Planet and help carry out analogue mission — field tests that replicate deep-space travel.

Mars Science City would have pressurised biodomes in which ecosystems could be sustained. Dubai Media Office

The city will be located at the Dubai Academic City and is scheduled for completion in 2024. Courtesy: Dubai Media Office

Construction of the project is expected to begin next year. Courtesy: Dubai Media Office

Adnan Al Rais is the Mars 2117 programme manager at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre. Mbrsc

The first image of Mars taken by the UAE's Hope probe, which arrived to the planet on February 9. EPA

Amin Al Zarouni, chief executive of Bedu, said that the UAE was leading the way in space.

“We are excited to partner with Mbrsc and are honoured to capture this spellbinding adventure to the stars using the power of the latest and greatest technologies here on Earth,” he said.

“With 2117 we aspire to deliver a fully experience driven metaverse that focuses on creating endless opportunities for both, individuals and organisations.”

The space centre is a supporter of international efforts to send astronauts to the Moon and then onwards to Mars.

It is already taking part in analogue missions to help scientists with research, including the psychological and physiological effects on humans of long-duration flights.

Saleh Al Ameri, an Emirati mechanical engineer, was the first Arab analogue astronaut.

He spent eight months inside a Russian analogue facility with five other crew.

The experiments were part of a five-year research programme by Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems and Nasa’s Human Research Programme.

Analogue facilities in the UAE would give Emirati volunteers easier access to training in such environments.

A timeline for the completion of the Mars 2117 simulation in the metaverse was not revealed.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.