ally need a Malaysian angkasawan to
conduct the experiments? You could
can ask the Japanese, the Americans,
maybe even the robots to conduct the
experiments. So we should be very clear
on what we want to achieve and equally
clear that sending our own astronaut is
the best way. The third question then is
about the Angkasawan – who to send
to space.
The criteria must change for us to
move forward. People may mistakenly
think I am not gung-ho about another
angkasawan programme. I am all for it,
provided that we set very clear and distinct objectives from the first.
Q: Datuk, did you watch
The Martian?
Yes I did!
Q: When do you think humans
would be able to live on, or
travel to Mars?
I heard this from the mouth of the NASA
administrator himself five years ago:
The person who is going to Mars is already born.
The US are really serious about going
to Mars. The UAE are also going to launch
an orbiter to Mars to help others who are
planning to travel there. The Europeans,
too, have their own Mars programme.
How would we get to Mars? Well,
the US believe asteroids are the key
– they want to launch their rockets
off asteroids. Europeans feel that the
launch should be from the moon, so
they are working to colonise the moon
and gather resources from it before they
travel to Mars. It’s also more energy efficient to launch from the moon.
My point is: the Mars programmes
are very serious – the technology is in
36 | P e r d a n a M a g a z in e 2 0 1 5
place and are being developed further.
Most importantly, in the US, the private sector is getting involved in a big
way. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk may
have different objectives but they are
working to make it possible. So there
are good vibes about Mars programmes
when the government and private sector are working together.
By 2050, there’s a good chance that
a human being would travel to Mars.
There is also a good chance that the first
crew to fly to Mars will not be all-American or all-European but will be a group
of people representing the human race.
One of the visions I had when I began the Angkasawan Project was to have
a Malaysian on such a trip. That would
be really cool. But you can’t dream of
this unless Malaysia has embarked on
something that gives people confidence
that Malaysia has the talent and the capability to contribute to the mission.
Actually, to have a Malaysian even be
considered as a candidate would have
been an achievement.
I know that to a lot of people having
a Malaysian on board a mission to Mars
is not a big deal. I mean, who cares if you
get selected to go to Mars? But I do. I
care very much.
Q: Can you let us know about
the new project that you’re
heading, MegaScience 3.0?
Megascience is a project to look at the
big picture of science and technology
and put in place action plans, intervention, and strategies to allow our country to benefit. Let me explain first that
there were Megascience 1.0 and 2.0.
Megascience 1.0 dealt with water, energy, health, agriculture, and biodiversity to find answers to the energy ques-
tion for the future while Megascience
2.0 focused on housing, infrastructure,
transportation, environment, electricals
and electronics.
For Megascience 3.0, we are more
industry focused, zeroing on furniture
(high economic impact), automotive,
creative, tourism, plastics and composites; we use data and consultations
to project to the year 2050. By August
2016, we should know already what our
priorities are for each sector to ensure
these industries thrive.
There is one change that I introduced
since I came back to head Megascience
3.0. I wanted to make sure that the outputs from each industry jived with one
another. From the previous Megascience
programmes, it seemed that each industry had its own future. There was no common future among the sectors. Water did
not speak to Energy, and so on, despite
the fact that the Water-Energy-Food
nexus is critical.
This time, we made sure that we
projected common futures for all the
sectors. We also constructed different
scenarios for Malaysia as a whole in terms
of society and culture, economics, science and technology and geopolitics. The
scenarios have to gel into the projected
future of 2050. We have formulated four
scenarios: the ideal, “best-case” scenario,
and the “worst-case” scenario, plus two
other scenarios in between. The worstcase scenario is useful because it directs
our thinking to preventive measures.
We are determined that the public
will be able to understand these futures.
So we’ve employed writers to compose
the narratives. It’s basically storytelling about the possible futures for Malaysians. The findings would be made
public sometime in August 2016.