Nisa Sude DEMİREL
İSTANBUL

A Turkish passenger will be sent into space as part of the Turkish Space Agency's (TUA) national space programme. Alper Gezeravcı, who was selected from among the citizens who applied, will begin his journey into space with Mission Director Michael Lopez-Alegria, representing the United States and Spain, pilot Walter Villadei of the Italian Air Force, and Marcus Wandt of Sweden, participating on behalf of the European Space Agency.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to carry the Ax-3 crew aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew will spend 14 days aboard the ISS conducting 13 experiments.

The flight, which was scheduled to launch on the night of 17 January to 18 January, was postponed a day later (19 January 2024 00:49) in a last-minute announcement.

While the project was announced as "Our star will be in space very soon" and the dominant media claimed that Gezeravcı was the "first Turkish astronaut", $55 million was paid to Axiom Space for this project in which neither the rocket, the station nor the training centre were "domestic and national". Space tourism, which has been developing for some time, allows anyone who pays for a ticket to travel into space.

"PARTY PROPAGANDA"

Speaking to Evrensel about the project, Engin Aksüt, a retired captain-pilot, stresses that these are not astronauts, but space travellers, and says that the information about the project is disinformation. One of the main points Aksüt makes is that Alper Gezeravcı is a space traveller, not a 'Turkish astronaut', which is one of the goals of TÜA. He explains the difference as follows: "A citizen who you raise, prepare and send to space with your own means becomes an astronaut, but if we pay money and send him to space with a short training, he should be called a space traveller." Recalling that various social media influencers abroad became space travellers through SpaceX for a certain amount of money and stayed in space for about an hour, Aksüt said, "For example, did these people become astronauts? This should not be underestimated, of course, but it makes no sense to attribute to the nation a situation that can be done for money".

Recalling the promise of landing on the moon in 2023, which has not been realised as part of the national space programme, Aksüt said: "I wish our country was ahead in this respect, but unfortunately the current situation is both disinformation and propaganda. Citizens are being gassed," Aksüt said. Commenting on the 1 billion 702 million TL budget for the Turkish Space Agency in 2024, Aksüt stressed that the budget is also insufficient compared to the promises: "Countries allocate billions for such projects. With this budget, these promises are just eye candy and party propaganda".

ROCKET IN FLORIDA, TRAINING IN TEXAS

It has been announced that two citizens will be selected for the "Turkish Space Traveller and Science Mission" in May 2022, and the conditions have been published on the TUA website. During the presentation of the national space programme, AKP President Erdoğan said about the candidates to apply: "Maybe there are some women who say I am a candidate. We will select volunteers who have the necessary qualifications, ensure they receive the necessary training and send them into space. Now we have to find a Turkish equivalent for the words astronaut or cosmonaut". In response to Erdoğan's call to find a Turkish equivalent for the word "astronaut", the TDK's suggestions of "gökmen" and "uçman" were put back on the agenda in 2005 with the launch of the national space programme.

Thirty out of 36,000 applicants were called to Ankara. Candidates who met the necessary requirements underwent medical and psychological tests in Ankara. Speaking at TEKNOFEST at Atatürk Airport on 29 April, President Erdoğan announced that Alper Gezeravcı and Tuva Cihangir Atasever had been selected as the main and reserve astronauts respectively. For Gezeravcı's training and flight service, cooperation has been established with Axiom Space in the USA. The astronauts were trained in Houston, Texas, USA.

WHAT'S NEXT AFTER "LANDING ON THE MOON"?

TUA has announced 10 goals in its strategic plans. One of these goals, which includes domestic satellite production, regional positioning, establishing a spaceport, creating a space industry, creating space awareness and sending Turkish astronauts into space, was to make a "hard landing on the Moon" with a "national and indigenous hybrid rocket" to be launched in low-Earth orbit with international cooperation on the 100th anniversary of the Republic. Erdogan stated this goal at the launch of the national space programme: "Our most important goal is to make first contact with the Moon in the 100th year of the Republic. Look at the sky, look at the moon... God willing, we will go to the moon. In the first stage, we will reach the Moon with our own national and indigenous hybrid rocket, which we will launch in low-Earth orbit at the end of 2023 and make a hard landing". However, there was no "hard landing on the Moon" in 2023.

THE BUDGET ALLOCATED FOR THESE GOALS IS $56 MILLION

The Turkish Space Agency (TUA) was established in 2018 by Presidential Decree No. 23. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of TUA, which operates under the Ministry of Industry and Technology, is Yusuf Kıraç, former President of Türk Telekom. The purpose of the Turkish Space Agency's National Space Programme is stated on its website as follows: "It has been prepared for the coordinated and integrated implementation of our country's vision, strategies, goals and projects in the field of space policy in order to utilise the existing potential in our country, taking into account the developments in the world."

The budget allocated for the realisation of the "vision and mission" expressed in these sentences attracts the reaction of citizens every year. While the budget allocated to the TUA in 2022 was 61 million TL, it was 1.6 billion TL in 2023 and 1 billion 702 million TL (56 million 474 thousand dollars) in 2024. The budget for 2025 and 2026 will be TL 2 billion 95 million and TL 2 billion 375 million respectively.

Hakkâri MP Öznur Bartın, a member of the TBMM's Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Committee, spoke to Evrensel about this budget. Bartın said that it is important to carry out scientific studies and that a budget should be allocated for this purpose, but "the government does not approach this issue seriously and works according to its own calculations". Noting that the budget is not allocated for science and education, but for war technologies and the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Bartın said, "As the opposition, we raise our objections, but unfortunately it has no effect. The budget should be allocated in a way that supports science, taking into account the demands of the people".