The United Arab Emirates is the latest country to sign up for NASA's continuing efforts to explore Mars. NASA signed an agreement yesterday with the UAE Space Agency that will see the two countries collaborate on a range of aerospace and space exploration projects.
Other than Mars, both countries were vague on the specific joint projects they might undertake.
"NASA is leading an ambitious journey to Mars that includes partnerships with the private sector and many international partners," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "I am confident this new framework agreement with the UAE Space Agency will help advance this journey, as well as other endeavors in the peaceful exploration of outer space.
"Already, technical experts from our two countries are engaged in discussions on several areas of mutual interest, and I believe our two agencies will collaborate for years to come through a common interest in aeronautics, exploration and discovery."
The UAE's space ambitions are still in their infancy, but advancing rapidly. Barely two years old, its space agency has already signed partnerships with two of the world's leading agencies other than NASA—the UK's Space Agency and France's CNES. It has also committed resources to Red Planet research, so a NASA partnership focusing on Mars makes sense.
Some 75 Emirati engineers are currently working on the UAE Mars project, according to the AP, and officials hope to double that number by 2020. Their goal is to eventually explore Mars' surface with an unmanned probe called Hope.
Other than engineering resources, the main benefit the UAE can offer NASA's astronomically expensive Mars program is funding. In addition to its space agency, the UAE has already pumped $280 million into Virgin Galactic via a government-backed investment firm. A partner willing to invest is just what NASA needs as it faces sometimes-tenuous support in Congress.
Meanwhile, NASA is drumming up support for its Mars project among the general public by releasing a set of tongue-in-cheek travel posters. Like NASA's earlier Mars posters, these can be downloaded for free. But with slogans like "Some user assembly required" above a depiction of an astronaut welding spaceship parts, they're as much gag gifts as they are actual art.
The eight posters can be downloaded here, and we suspect space enthusiasts are already making room on their walls to hang them.