First Nigerian man to journey into space, Owolabi Salis, tells FEMI ADEDIRAN about his extraordinary voyage and deeper questions about life and existence. A lawyer, researcher, and spiritual thinker, Salis reflects on his motivations and revelations from space
Can you share the motivation behind your trip to space?
I actually went on a spiritual journey because this planet (earth) that we live on, I call it Planet 3, is suspended by the sun’s beam. I think that it is mysterious enough that we are living on a planet that is suspended and revolving around the sun at about 100,000 km per hour. I’ve done so much reading and research on astrology and astrophysics and I’m also a very important member of the Soul Maker Ministry.
So, some questions have been coming forward from my mind. Why are we really existing? A living being is about a soul and a body. The soul builds the body. If you conceive today and you abort the pregnancy, there will be no development of the body.
If a child is born today and unfortunately the child passes away, that means the soul leaves the body and the body stops growing. At any point the soul leaves your body, the body stops growing. If the soul builds the body, what is the origin of this soul?
If it leaves your body, where does it go? If you now look at the properties of our body, and you look at the properties of Planet 3, which some idol worshippers named Planet Earth, they are almost the same in terms of properties. Then, where is the soul when it leaves the body? Where does it come from?
Were you able to find answers to these questions during your trip?
Oh, yes. I’ve found some hypotheses, but I’m keeping them to myself.
Why are you keeping them to yourself?
I’m keeping them to myself for now until I’m able to strengthen the argument and the position.
So, essentially, your findings are not conclusive?
I’ve told you. I’ve found some kind of traces of the research where it should conclude, but I’m keeping it to myself.
How did you join the NS-33 crew of Blue Origin?
It’s a long process. I live in America. I live in New York and I sent them a letter that I needed to do research on spiritualism and the importance to human beings and I needed to join them and they assessed the cost, and I paid. So, that’s basically what it is. I went for training and the training was very intensive.
How long was the training?
The training was about a week, but it’s very intensive. Besides, before you come, they’ll send you a lot of documents that you have to go through. Then you go for the training, but it’s more practical, and then you have to be approved by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), they will take care of that. They take care of all the approval applications.
Then you have to sign a lot of health waivers; you have to take insurance on your own. You know it is a rocket and if it blows, you’re gone. Three days before the first launch, I was in the same Texas. There was a rocket from Elon Musk – SpaceX that blew up before it kicked off, the engines blew up.
Did you fear that your rocket could blow up as well?
No, believe me, I didn’t have any fear because I’m a member of the Soul Making Ministry and we try to enrich our soul daily. We were supposed to fly June 21, which was the solstice day, a very important day. On that day, we were already strapped or harnessed to the seat, and then the countdown started.
Suddenly, the engine did not pick up. The wind came, heavy wind on the deck. They had to scrub it. They scrubbed on June 21. Then we were to fly the second day, June 22, then the wind continued to blow and they scrubbed it. Then they just decided to abort it for that week and go back a week after, June 29. Then we flew.
During these periods, did it cross your mind to abort the trip?
I don’t fear, believe me. I don’t know of others, but for me, I just stayed. I believed that I was going to go and come back.
The trip must have cost a fortune; can you give us an estimate?
It’s a confidential thing. I’m not going to disclose it because it is a confidential agreement. But for you to embark on this kind of journey, you need like $2m. That’s rocket, you have to buy insurance, you have to pay, you have to make arrangements, you have to do so many things.
You have to plan, like minimum of six months to one year. If you go there, you will know it’s cheap because you have a lot of engineers and people taking care of rockets, a lot of machines. You have too many people, it’s advanced engineering.
You made history as the first Nigerian to travel to space. How does this make you feel?
It’s okay. I’ve had a lot of firsts, only that I don’t make noise. I was the first Nigerian also to go to the South Pole and the North Pole within a season. The Russian people also told me I was the first Nigerian to take the nuclear icebreaker to the North Pole. I’m probably the first Nigerian to visit the two ice sheets in the world.
There are two ice sheets in the world – Antarctica and Greenland. So, I’m probably also the first Nigerian to visit Mars on Earth. There is a place in Antarctica they call it Elephant Head; it is in Union Glacier. The condition there, we were told, is the same condition on Mars.
Why do you embark on these adventures?
It’s more of a pilgrimage because I believe pilgrimage is not limited to any particular region or place, like some people go and do a pilgrimage in the Middle East. No, the Almighty Lord of the Universe created different things in different places on the planet.
As long as the sun appears in every corner of Planet 3 and the moon appears in every corner, everywhere is important. The more you take that very good position, you do your pilgrimage and appreciate nature, and you begin to have different perspectives about this planet. You have more confidence; you have more clarity in your soul.
I’ve been to over 120 countries; I have proof. On my second tour of Iceland, I was surprised at what I saw this time around. I took a car, drove almost six hours around the country. I was fascinated with some of the things I saw — beautiful waterfalls, just like in Nigeria.
Nigeria is extremely beautiful as well, a lot of things in that country that people need to appreciate. So, it’s an interesting world; the more you travel, the more you see, and the more culture of people you will know. Everywhere you go, you see, the Almighty Lord of the Universe created diversity in everything.
Even in the air you breathe, there is diversity. But people cannot see that. There is diversity in the water; there is diversity in the soil, the different lands. You can observe that. The more you travel and put all this in your body, the more spiritual stability you have.
According to Blue Origin, you experienced weightlessness for three minutes. Can you describe the feeling for that period?
It was a nice experience. Now, when the rocket started, it was just going; such a simple, nice technology. As you know, kudos to Blue Origin. You just feel like you are going at five miles an hour.
Then suddenly you are in space. Then, when we were about to enter space, you hear boom (a loud sound), like a vehicle entering a porthole, then everything just went dark.
Later, something started to pull your body; you are on a harness, the belt. Once your harness is there, you just float like a bird, wow! It was wonderful. Very interesting; you float like a bird.
You are floating and rotating. So, it’s like everybody starts to unknowingly submit to the Almighty Lord because if you are in space, everything there is worshipping Him. Technically, that’s what it’s doing, it’s spiritual.
We had been trained to hold on to one object or the other, so, it’s not like it’s pulling heavily, but you keep floating, while you just hold on to objects. You can adjust yourself to stretch. One of my colleagues, Jimmy, stretched his leg and he was like lying down. I went there on a spiritual, so I have to do what I have to do quickly.
I saw a piece of Planet 3; I looked at the whole thing, it’s dark. Then your Planet 3 (earth) is just right there around, suspended. I said, ‘Na wa o!’ This is mysterious on its own. It makes no sense for anybody not to worship the Almighty Lord of the universe.
What I discovered is that the Almighty Lord of the Universe is not the same as what some religious books are telling us. From what I saw there, it’s not the same; the Almighty Lord of the Universe is special, trust me.
From that height, what was the earth like?
It is one of the things you are going to see: round. It is just like the whole thing is like a ball.
At that moment, what were your thoughts about life?
I’ve had this thinking before and it’s just confirmed. Why are we really in Planet 3 anyway? That’s the only home we all have. And then I was like, so all those leaders who are fighting, creating trouble, they need to come to space, they’ll be humbled.
I was very humbled. I was humbled before but I became more humbled. When you are floating, it’s like your soul leaves your body. They will still give us the video and I will share it with you when I get it.
Now that you have conquered space, what’s next on your adventure list?
I’ve been to the North Pole, South Pole and Greenland; those are critical places in the world. I have been to space, and I have been under the ocean too. There are other Islands, a lot of small Islands surrounded by the ocean that are very spiritual.
I tell you right now, when you see an Island surrounded by water, it’s spiritual. Many of them are products of volcanoes. You’ll find a lot of them in the Pacific and the Atlantic, even everywhere. Those are the Islands I’m concentrating on now.
They are very easy to cover; when you go inside their forests, they have good forests. When you go inside them, you will see a lot of beautiful waterfalls. So, my next goal is to get a boat and go to Antigua. I will take the boat to all those smaller Islands.
Aside from being a lawyer, what else do you do to afford these expensive trips?
I’m a super lawyer. I’m also a financial consultant. But right now, I’m retired and I’m just relying on my retirement savings. I’ve got a lot of awards until I faced some federal civil rights violations.
There are some discriminations here that I’ve experienced personally, and civil rights violations, which, because of my competency, I have to sue those who are in charge.
I defend poor people here. I’m well-known here. Go everywhere in New York and ask them my name, some of them will tell you that after God, that is the man because I defend them.
What is the future of space travel?
Definitely, it’s going to get cheaper. The Blue Origin people are already developing another rocket called the New Glenn, named after astronaut Glenn. The one we used was named after astronaut Shepard, the first American to go to space in 1961.
I spoke to some of their leadership to see if I could recommend some more Nigerians for the trip. A lot of Nigerians can afford it, only that they don’t pay attention to it. I can call those people because they can’t take more than six in a capsule, and a lot of people are applying all over the world. A lot of Nigerians can do it.
You contested to be the governor of Lagos State several times, spending a fortune. Looking back, do you regret it?
There is no regret in the sense that life is about putting yourself out there and participating in anything going on that you think is going to be beneficial to humanity. What if I had won? Somebody has to win. Even though the results were being written, but what if I had won, the story would be different.
But today, the kind of politics we have in Nigeria is assisted personality politics. It is a situation where somebody will go and bring another person who cannot dream of being chairman; they will push him to become the governor and the person will be worshipping you. Someone will go and bring anybody to impose on the people.
They don’t allow those who really want to do something, people who have ideas, who want to project something…they just bring somebody and impose. Equitocracy would not allow for that. That’s why the book that I wrote, Equitocracy – Diversity-Based Democracy, takes care of that.
What message do you have for the Nigerian government?
The most important message is that the system of democracy that we are practising now is not good. There should be equitocracy. Nigeria is a very good country and the solution is there. For example, when it comes to grassroots governance, one key area of grassroots governance is to have local police, not even state police.
Once we have that, there will be peace. If your fear is that the local police can be used against the minority, then we can do a management structure to avoid that, because the damage that we are having now with one central police is too much.
America is stable because they have local police. The police are the real government on the street; if we have local police, then we have presidential monitoring through the real people.