Minister of science and technology Fawad Chaudhry announced that Pakistan will send its first person to space in 2022. The announcement came through a tweet where he announced that the selection shall begin from Feb 2020. Firstly 50 members will be shortlisted, and the selection shall come to 25. Further, one of them will be sent to space in 2022. This obviously is going to be the biggest space mission of our history. Moreover, space has been an undiscovered peak for Pakistan except for the launch of two indigenously built satellites into orbit last year. In 2022 mission, Chinese launch center will be used since we lack our own satellite launch pad. The main reason by which we are far behind in the space research is the lack of interest in space studies and low budget. The recently announced budget had only Rs6 billion for Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, commonly known as (SUPARCO).On the other hand, India spends one trillion Indian rupees for its space missions alone. By the way, we are glad and cheerful because we are going to have our first space mission.

HAMMAL NAEEM,

Turbat.