They may be light years away from fulfilling their dream, but Mexican lawmakers are preparing to launch a national space agency they hope could one day stand tall beside the United States' NASA.
Mexico's lower house passed a law on Wednesday, which if approved by the upper chamber, would create a space agency to coordinate research and work with universities and the private sector to launch communication and weather satellites.
With an initial budget proposal of less than $2 million, the backers of the Mexican Space Agency say it would struggle to challenge its northern neighbor's National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, but hope it would draw Mexico into the international space community, bringing access to cutting-edge technology and research.
"We'd love it to become the Mexican NASA, but obviously the levels of investment are incomparable. It's very distant, perhaps not in the vision but in resources," a spokesman for the Mexican Congress's Science and Technology Commission, which drew up the law, said Thursday.
The spokesman said the agency would help Mexico advance in diverse fields of science and technology, including robotics, electronics and telecommunications.
The commission hopes the law will be swiftly passed in the Senate, allowing the agency to start operating next year.
However, not all politicians support the plan. The ruling National Action Party, which has a minority in Congress, voted against the initiative, saying the money would be better spent on eradicating widespread poverty.