AMMAN, 16 September 2004 — Russia is to establish the Middle East’s first permanent space project in Jordan, the English-language daily Jordan Times reported yesterday.
The $150 million space center will include a scientific entertainment complex and a space training facility to train future Jordanian astronauts.
The multistage project to be launched this week, is funded entirely by Russians representing the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) and other space-related establishments.
“The project will put Jordan firmly on the map for space tourism, attracting millions of visitors annually and providing employment opportunities for hundreds of Jordanians,” the Jordan Times quoted the project’s Russian representative in Jordan, Issa Mutalika, as saying.
As part of the project, a Jordanian pilot will be chosen to undergo astronaut training in Russia, Mutalika said. To date, only two Arab astronauts have been into space, Saudi Prince Sultan ibn Salman and Mohammad Fares of Syria.
The project was originally planned for Dubai, but with King Abdallah’s visits to Russia and the investment environment in Jordan, the decision was taken to build the project in Jordan, Mutalika said.
Meanwhile, two Jordanians were charged in Amman yesterday with planning to carry out attacks on diplomats in the country, according to their charge sheet.
Student Khaled Abdelrahman Jibran, 20, and shop employee Abdelhamid Ezzat Mahmoud Yassin, 31, were charged by the state security court prosecutor with “conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts.”
They were also charged with planning “military operations against foreign diplomats as revenge on their countries for their stances regarding Muslim causes.”
The two had agreed “to carry out the military operations against the foreign diplomats who frequented the shop where the second accused worked,” the charge sheet said.
