African Space Power, Somalia and the UEN

Under the UEN entry, it mentions Somalia becoming a major space power during the Expansion (core 209).

1) How plausible would that be, given Somalia's general lack of industrial infrastructure and resources?

Also, given that for a period during the early-mid 1990s, Somalia ceased to be a functioning state (and only remained a nominal 'nation' because it retained a seat in the UN general assembly):

2) How did or could Somalia retain the internal ethnic cohesion required to be a nation state first, then an industrial space power?

That early-mid 1990s period in Somalia was a time of rival warlords, anti-state militias and general political chaos, which led to the secession of Somaliland (in northern Somalia) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliland and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Civil_War). Somaliland is in a bit of a strange position now, in that it is not a recognized state in its own right, but it does do all the things a state normally does (issues passports, taxation, etc). None of the state documents it issues though are recognized or endorsed by the Somali state.

3) How did the Somali state solve the Somaliland problem?

Those questions on Somalia led me to broader thoughts on the concept of African space power in the UEN.

For a space programme to be most viable, it'd need to be on the equator. That gives you a list of about 13 countries that looks like this: (https://www.thoughtco.com/countries-that-lie-on-the-equator-1435319)

Now, some of those we could rule out straight away: Kiribati, Maldives, Sao Tome and Principe just don't have the land mass to support space infrastructure. I'd also rule out Somalia on two counts (political instability and there isn't as much relative land mass on the equator to make Somalia viable)

4) Would it be more feasible for Kenya to be the primary UEN space hub?

Larger relative area on the equator (compared to Somalia), more politically stable and building from a more established tech and industrial base.

I'd rule out Uganda, based mostly on the same sort of political instability risks and relative landmass on the equator problems (as with Somalia).

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) looks promising for land mass and equator span, but I'd rule it out for political risk and the fact that you'd need to be putting space infrastructure either near the northern Equateur province, or in the east in North or South Kivu provinces. All those places have the dubious honour of being subject to ongoing outbreaks of Ebola since about 2018 (https://www.who.int/ebola/situation-reports/drc-2018/en/ and https://www.msf.org/drc-ebola-outbreak-crisis-update). Throw that in with some of the nastiness caused by the vaccine issues during the occupation (core 137-8) and things don't look great for DRC as a space hub.

5) Would Gabon and Equatorial Guinea be possible sites for an African space power? That would shift the African industrial space axis more towards west Africa (rather than east with Somalia).

6) Would it be feasible for Tanzania to become an (or the) African space power? Tanzania has a large existing cache of industrial metals, infrastructure and oil. It isn't quite on the equator though, but it does have extensive trade ties to China (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/tanzania/forrel-prc.htm), so it could have been boot-strapped as a puppet state of either China or Guangdong (my guess would be China over Guangdong, given ease of access proximity).

I had earmarked Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville) as a Cascade State (along with Indonesia), which would put Cascade into the African space power race, and give them two possible space launch sites.

The UEN could definitely have secondary space launch facilities in South America through Columbia.