inspiring millions and performing the kind of scientific exploration that just isn’t possible with long-range remote controlled cars But after fifty years of increasingly crippling budget cuts imposed by shortsighted they’ve become the outfit that runs a couple of really neat museums not all of humanity’s eggs are in one lunar module Here are 22 space agencies that aren’t NASA France established its space program in 1961 Everything but the CNES’s launches are handled at Toulouse Space Centre I could write about France’s contribution to the International Space Station but let’s get to the good stuff: CNES is the only space program in the world with an acknowledged UFO investigation agency The irony here is that if Independence Day ever became a reality Bill Pullman would have to give his rousing speech on July 14th—Bastille Day hundreds of Lithuanian scientists and engineers have worked with NASA The first Lithuanian cosmonaut was Aleksey Yeliseyev-Kuraitis a loop went wrong and the aircraft went down but the plane would have crashed into a crowd of onlookers he spent his last moments veering the plane toward relative safety Places you are not likely to find someone from Bangladesh: Space. That said, the country has a capable space research program that has participated in the Landsat program and works with foreign space agencies to survey its own natural resources and local ecosystem In 2015, Sri Lanka will launch a geostationary communications satellite from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. This is the country’s first foray into space, and will mark the culmination of long ambitions for a space program. Its partnership with China is worth noting; China has spent quite some time helping smaller poorer nations develop their own space programs using “space diplomacy” as a means of making strategic inroads into South Asia The Hungarian Space Office was founded in 1992 and is part of Hungary’s Ministry of National Development The general operation of Hungarian space program works something like this: Dr who is in turn advised by the Scientific Council on Space Research The Hungarian Space Board works with the ministry in “strategic cases,” which pretty much means spy satellites and missile defense The Israel Space Agency was founded in 1983 to organize and implement a space program and presently has a robust satellite launch capability (Israel is the smallest country in the world with its own spaceport.) The first Israeli astronaut was Ilan Ramon who died tragically on the Space Shuttle Columbia TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute started out in 1985 as Ankara Electronics Research and Development Institute, and was part of Middle East Technical University. The agency is serious business—it has put a couple of reconnaissance satellites in space. It was recently announced that Turkey plans to construct a spaceport in its territory (What’s worse: The Moon Treaty or the Khitomer Accords The National Remote Sensing Center is Mongolia’s agency to coordinate remote sensing applications with foreign space programs The big deal about sensors (this also applies to Bangladesh for example) is that they help governments map their territory and monitor their natural hazards Things like wildfires and snow cover need good accurate eye-in-the-sky imagery and long-term studies with data sets of the highest quality The Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications & Remote Sensing, in addition to being the best space program to help me meet this article’s word count, is Greece’s space agency for doing all of those things in its name. It is part of the National Observatory of Athens, and is primarily a research institute The Belarus Space Agency is mostly interested in sensory applications and satellites and has plans to build a flight control center next year Belarus has fielded two astronauts: Pyotr Klimuk and Vladimir Kovalyonok Three words: Commander Chris Hadfield.[drops the mic and walks away] The UK Space Agency was established in 2010 to unify the various research and spacefaring organizations of the United Kingdom. Satellites, research, probes, droids—the usual. Presently, the UKSA is working on establishing a spaceport and space tourism capabilities Now, I’m not saying that China is the future of human space travel, but go ahead and click here to check out their logo. Look familiar While America is busy investing time and resources into Toddlers & Tiaras China has built a massive space infrastructure and planned a manned lunar mission with the intention of establishing a base on the moon It’s to prepare them for a Mars expedition The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency was founded in 1975. Like most space programs, sensing technology is a primary mission, and it has made great strides in remote analysis and, according to its website meteorological and radiation characters of different natural territorial and industrial objects.” The Brazilian Space Agency operates both a spaceport and a rocket launch site which makes it a key player in South American space affairs The agency launched its first rocket in 2004 Croatia has serious space ambitions. In 2007, it hosted a summit of space travelers “to inspire the next generation of scientists in Europe and Croatia and to chart the future role of smaller countries in human spaceflight.” While no Croatian has yet been to space it is home to the Zagreb Astronomical Observatory As a prospective member of the European Union there has been discussion of Croatia eventually joining the European Space Agency Twenty member states of Europe comprise the European Space Agency brings the Centre Spatial Guyanais spaceport to the table; Italy is responsible for the Vega payload launcher.) The ESA has an astronaut corps of 22 its roster almost indistinguishable from the character names and nationalities of the characters in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency unmanned spacecraft called the Peregrine Falcon landed on 25143 Itokawa It took samples and then returned to Earth things like that make me think we really are living in the future JAXA developed solar sails and successfully deployed them in 2010 Remember how I mentioned that China’s working on building a moon colony but they’re probably jealous of the sweet museums we made out of our space shuttles As any fan of Seinfeld can attest, “you not say Ukraine is weak!” Its space program is focused on research Kadenyuk became the first and only astronaut to fly into space under the independent Ukranian flag He served on NASA's STS-87 Space Shuttle mission Kazakhstan’s National Space Agency focuses on two key areas: monitoring the atmosphere and environment of the Earth from space and researching space-based materials science The first Kazakh cosmonaut was Tokhtar Aubakirov He later became director of the National Space Agency North Korea put the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 observation satellite into orbit—the first such successful launch by North Korea The general suspicion going into the mission was that it was a test run of a long-range ballistic missile The North Korean government dismissed such suspicions as lies being told by Western Imperialists The North Koreans didn’t really help themselves when they proceeded to release a statement which read in part: “We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action struggle that has lasted century after century © 2025 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved When she isn't hunched over a laptop and busy adding Oxford commas to stories you can find her belting out tunes at karaoke trying—and failing—to master cross stitching She enjoys writing about weird sea creatures You can also find her playing the latest indie games reading manga or folklore from different cultures He is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a contributor to The Week and mental_floss host of The List Show and Throwback on YouTube editor of Mental Floss's book The Curious Reader she covered everything from natural disasters to bridge engineering to the science behind sci-fi movies for Popular Mechanics magazine Her work has appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine Her work has also appeared in The New York Times Mental Floss may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.",{"type":"8h","value":"m0"},"AR_1",{"type":"8h","value":"m2"},"This article contains affiliate links to products selected by our editors as well as products provided to Mental Floss for review purposes d) {\n h = h[d] = h[d] || {\n q: [],\n onReady: function(c){ h.q.push(c) },\n };\n d = o.createElement(u);\n d.async = 1;\n d.src = n;\n n = o.getElementsByTagName(u)[0];\n n.parentNode.insertBefore(d \"https://www.datadoghq-browser-agent.com/us1/v5/datadog-rum.js\" Initialize Datadog RUM and then measure TTFB/FCP\n window.DD_RUM.onReady(function() {\n // 3a Initialize RUM\n window.DD_RUM.init({\n applicationId: 'f3f16add-4ebf-4aad-9bb4-adb13da4d17e',\n clientToken: 'pub53fad8ec1eea29e2f92980d95072da2f',\n site: \"datadoghq.com\",\n service: \"voltax-sites-www.mentalfloss.com\",\n env: \"prod\",\n sessionSampleRate: 100,\n sessionReplaySampleRate: 0,\n trackUserInteractions: true,\n trackResources: true,\n trackLongTasks: true,\n defaultPrivacyLevel: \"mask-user-input\",\n });\n\n // 3b Measure TTFB & FCP once the page fully loads\n window.addEventListener('load' {\n ttfb: ttfb,\n fcp: fcp,\n });\n\n // Optional: log them to console for debugging\n console.log('[Datadog RUM] TTFB:' Places you are not likely to find someone from Bangladesh: Space. That said, the country has a capable space research program that has participated in the Landsat program In 2015, Sri Lanka will launch a geostationary communications satellite from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. This is the country’s first foray into space, and will mark the culmination of long ambitions for a space program. Its partnership with China is worth noting; China has spent quite some time helping smaller TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute started out in 1985 as Ankara Electronics Research and Development Institute, and was part of Middle East Technical University. The agency is serious business—it has put a couple of reconnaissance satellites in space. It was recently announced that Turkey plans to construct a spaceport in its territory The Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications & Remote Sensing, in addition to being the best space program to help me meet this article’s word count, is Greece’s space agency for doing all of those things in its name. It is part of the National Observatory of Athens, and is primarily a research institute Three words: Commander Chris Hadfield.[drops the mic and walks away] The UK Space Agency was established in 2010 to unify the various research and spacefaring organizations of the United Kingdom. Satellites, research, probes, droids—the usual. Presently, the UKSA is working on establishing a spaceport and space tourism capabilities Now, I’m not saying that China is the future of human space travel, but go ahead and click here to check out their logo. Look familiar The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency was founded in 1975. Like most space programs, sensing technology is a primary mission, and it has made great strides in remote analysis and, according to its website Croatia has serious space ambitions. In 2007, it hosted a summit of space travelers As any fan of Seinfeld can attest, “you not say Ukraine is weak!” Its space program is focused on research