President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently unveiled a 10-point space program that aims to enable Turks to explore space in the next decade, setting ambitious goals such as landing on the moon in 2023. The program also aims to send a Turkish astronaut into space and begin the manufacturing of rockets.

Dubbed as the National Space Program, the landmark road map is based on two years of research by the Turkish Space Agency (TUA), which was established in 2018.

Indeed, Turkey's desire to explore space dates back to the beginning of its history. Turks' first important and still present space explorations and approaches were made in the eighth century in Central Asia. Other essential scholars further developed it during the Seljuk and Ottoman era, such as Cacabey and Ali Qushji.

It is a fact that the program alone is exciting; however, there are also (geo)political and military interests behind it, similar to the case of NASA.

In principle, a space program can solely serve scientific purposes or serve military goals simultaneously as in the United States. The decisive factor here is the overall picture. From Turkey's point of view, there is a clear security policy interest here, which is also evident from the National Space Program.

Latest achievements

Turkey has gained significant momentum in foreign direct investments (FDIs) and mega projects in recent years. Despite the pandemic, it has recorded a booming economic growth of 6.7% in the third quarter of 2020. This makes Turkey one of the few countries that have recorded economic growth despite curfews and travel restrictions. Particularly, the recent achievements can be listed as;