Robert Boroffice, leader of Nigeria's NASRDA, sees endless opportunity in a burgeoning space program. *

Photo: Mark Anderson * Nigeria, a country whose best-known technological export is probably the flowery e-mail output of its "419 scam" artists, is ramping up a scrappy space program that's working wonders with a relatively small investment.

Robert Boroffice, leader of Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency, or NASRDA, looks to the sky to solve his country's earthly problems of hunger and disease. The country has launched satellites on the cheap to aid agricultural and medical initiatives and is seriously contemplating building an international spaceport.

These are just some of the grand plans kicking around in the mind of Boroffice. His defense to charges of misplaced priorities – wasting money on space technology when Nigeria faces so many other pressing problems – is as disarming as it is forward-thinking: Space is one of the smartest micro-investments a developing nation can make, he said.

Boroffice, a former biology teacher who will address the PopTech conference Friday in Camden, Maine, must at times contend with the accusation that he is overseeing a gross mistake. (Wired News is covering the PopTech conference on the Underwire blog.)

Africa's most populous country, Nigeria is saddled with a sub-Saharan developing nation's standard-issue burdens: disease, poverty, corruption and malnutrition.

Boroffice thinks space technology is the key to addressing such woes relatively cheaply and efficiently. For example, NASRDA spent $13 million, less than 0.1 percent of the nation's budget, in the 2003 launch of NigeriaSat-1, an advanced imaging satellite that punches its weight with 1990s satellites in the $300 million class. NigeriaSat-1 – the first satellite to provide close-up images of the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina – helped sow the seeds of technological development in a nation that needs engineers, infrastructure and IT.

Today, Nigeria imports food for its booming population while Nigerian farmers' yields depend on seasonal variations in things like water availability and soil fertility. NigeriaSat-1 beams up-to-date agricultural data back to NASRDA mission control in Abuja every day, and Nigeria's space support program helps farmers make use of the information to make smart decisions, said Boroffice.

"There are seminars and workshops to teach farmers how to read (NigeriaSat-1) maps and how to identify areas where they can plant rice, when to plant and when to harvest and also to provide a system for monitoring the health of the rice (crop)," Boroffice said.

The challenge for NASRDA now, said Martin Sweeting of Surrey Satellite Technology, which built NigeriaSat-1, is reaching the point of self-sufficiency so Nigerian engineers can build, launch and operate satellites from within the country's borders.

Surrey Satellite, which also designed and built the successful imaging satellite's successor – NigeriaSat-2, which is set to launch next year – is training some of Boroffice's top science staff.

With the successful launch earlier this year of Nigeria's first communications satellite, NigComSat-1, Boroffice wants to expand both the role of space technology in the country and the economic viability of NASRDA.

Telemedicine is now possible, Boroffice said, thanks to Nigeria's new bird in the sky.

"Most of our doctors don't want to go to rural areas," he said. "So we have created primary health-care centers, and we link them to two teaching hospitals. And these two hospitals, with videoconferencing, can provide high-quality medicine to these remote (areas)."

Boroffice also pines for the day when a Nigerian spaceport is inaugurated, enabling local launch of NASRDA spacecraft. (Previous craft have launched from Russia and China.) Nigeria's proximity to the equator means it has a natural aerospace resource many nations might want to buy into.

"(Nigeria has) a location that's ideal for launching satellites into geostationary and polar orbits," Sweeting said. "This is something that they could clearly exploit at any time."

Nigerian Film Industry Mixes Digital Tech, Homegrown Scripts

Space Tours for Taikonauts

Baiters Teach Scammers a Lesson

India Rolls Its Own Space Tech

Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth's Orbit