Ms. Mazlan Othman, Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), met with reporters today to discuss the UN’s latest initiatives in dealing with increasing evidence of extraterrestrial life. She said the UN program, which is operated out of Vienna, works to identify “the entire spectrum of humanity.”
“As a astrophysicist, statistically, it is possible. Every year, there are an increasing number of extra solar planets…and the UN is logically set up as one of the mechanisms to discuss extraterrestrial life… and a meeting of the minds.”
The OOSA allocates some US$7 million dollars every two years from the UN budget to the project which includes investigating space traffic management, space debris, nuclear rocket and satellite power, and climate change in space. Countries largely funding the OOSA (estimated at US$3 million per biennium) include the United States, Germany, Austria, and China as well as active pilot projects being supported by Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Burkina Faso (to name a few).