Moon Village Participation for Emerging Space Countries (Kuwait)

During April 12-13, 2019 a novel and highly promising event involving young professionals and students was held in Kuwait City.

The “MV-PESC (Kuwait)” workshop and competition was organized under the auspices of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS) with cooperation and support from the Moon Village Association (MVA) and Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC).

The event, which involved 14 young persons and more than 30 other participants comprised both a workshop and a competition in which ideas for potential Kuwait participation in the Moon Village were developed by competing teams. Of the 14 young participants, one dozen were female students and young professionals. Three leaders from the MVA participated in the event: John C. Mankins, MVA Vice President (who provided 5-plus hours of lectures and mentoring to the participants), Oleh Ventskovsky, MVA Board Member and manager for the MVA Moon Market (who provided lectures and mentoring) and Chaitanya Gopal representing PTScientists, an MVA Institutional Member (who provided lectures and mentoring).

The meeting in Kuwait is expected to serve as a model for future, similar events and resulted in both strategic recommendations vis-a-vis how Kuwait might move toward participation in the MV that will be presented internationally, and a winning project proposal team, which will be receiving support to participate in SGAC meetings at the upcoming International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2019) in Washington, D.C.