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WRESAT launched from Woomera in 1967 and Australia became the third country to launch their own satellite.
WRESAT — Weapons Research Establishment Satellite

Yes, they had a little help but it still counts. PS. Enough of the cheap Aussie-bashing insults - just be happy that the launch was a success and stop embarrassing yourself.

This was the actual text from Clayton Utz, the law firm acting for the Australian Department of Defence: "“The reason we believe your claim will fail is because you allege that the Commonwealth owes innovators submitting products or technology for evaluation a duty of care to ensure that the evaluations are either fair, proper and accurate or that the confidential information is respected. There is no such duty of care in Australian law.”

They are very disingenuous: The DSTO publicly solicits businesses to submit inventions to Defence under the "DSTO CTD Capability and Technology Demonstrator Program", and then screw them over behind closed doors.

Here the Defence Science Minister Warren Snowdon announced a DSTO Probity Board "to protect against conflict of interest" http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/news/6648/, while here he sends a letter to an independent MP in which he falsely claims the whistleblower didn't want the thefts from other companies to be investigated(!): http://victimsofdsto.com/doc/2011-02-28%20Letter%20from%20Defence%20Science%20Minister%20with%20false%20information%20to%20Independent%20MP%20(NAMES%20BLACKED%20OUT).pdf

Australia's Federal Police force, the AFP, are systemically corrupt. They ignore public service crime http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service-keeps-fraud-cases-private-20110923-1kpdr.html and terrorise whistleblowers: http://pastebin.com/tD8Vd6Vd http://victimsofdsto.com/psc/#kessing

You can't use the civil courts: Under the Model Litigant Policy the Australian government has to keep legal costs to a minimum, must offer alternate dispute resolution, etc. But the government lawyers simply ignore it, run up huge legal bills and threaten to bankrupt you with a costs order if you dare step foot into court. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/gillard-government-lashed-for-ignoring-breaches-of-model-litigant-rules/story-e6frg97x-1226325228917 Another department did actually bankrupt a guy. Not mentioned in the article, the DSTO also stole IP from some big defence companies (including an American one).

It costs about $2M to litigate the gov. I don't know of a single company who has seen litigation through: SMEs can't afford it, and the large companies said litigating their biggest customer would lose future contracts. The only law firms capable of taking on the government pro bono in Australia are all on retainer to them! Here's a very good book "Our Corrupt Legal System" by an investigative crime journalist; Page 157- describes all the dirty tricks lawyers play: http://netk.net.au/Whitton/OCLS.pdf . play.

You have a source on that? I can't find that response reported anywhere.

Even if the Navy do appreciate it as a training exercise, I'm sure they could plan an exercise with similar benefits at at time that doesn't involve dragging the entire crew of a naval frigate away from leave with their families in the week before Christmas.

http://www.defence.gov.au/budget/08-09/dar/vol1/ch09_07.htm

Re: "The way they drop them hasn't changed much."
http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/pdf/chapters/Chapter%2018.pdf
Section 8.31 seems to give a hint at what NASA is trying to help with.
(from http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/chapters.htm)

Re: "The way they drop them hasn't changed much."
http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/pdf/chapters/Chapter%2018.pdf
Section 8.31 seems to give a hint at what NASA is trying to help with.
(from http://www.defence.gov.au/sea_king_boi/chapters.htm)

... You Cannot Give This To Kids! Pesce says that Sega took the test results and buried them. Fearing lawsuits and consumer backlash over health risks, the VR Headset never made it to market and neither did the truth about the dangers of prolonged exposure to 3D virtual environments - until now. The results of SRI's research have been published and there is an unclassified document from the defense department of Australia that says there are a variety of "...unintended psychophysiological side effects of participation in (3D) virtual environments."

All that took was one google search for "3d tv danger". I'm sure experience with the actual devices would yield more "headaches" and other disorientation, which a parent takes as serious coming from the kiddos.

Until we could show him specs and tolerances and statistical failure rates of our designs...

The Airworthiness Design Requirements Manual states it better than I can, so I quote:

"Unlike hardware components that are subject to random failures (e.g. wear in or wear out failures) which generally can be characterised by failure probability distributions, software does not fail randomly. Instead latent defects in software can cause it to fail systematically when the set of initial conditions and internal state cause the section of code containing the latent defect and related data to be executed. While there has been some effort amongst researchers to characterise such failures using probabilistic means and quantify software reliability, such approaches are not widely accepted. Therefore, the traditional use of a Hazard Risk Index Matrix characterising risk as a function of severity and probability is unsuitable for application to software because there is no easy means to define a probability for software."

That's an Americanism. We're talking about Australia. The summary even spells it Defence, and how could that be wrong!?

Even their website is defence.gov.au...

Thats true. Low earth orbit is a low quality vacuum at a high temperature. Because of the low density photons from the sun can pump it up to very high temperatures. This study suggests 700 to 1100 kelvin at 240 km altitude.

Ahh just in time then is Seagates announcement of FDE series of drives, they use a small linux based boot sector to allow or disallow access to the drives decoding hardware, of course without that hardware enabled and with the right key it will all be useless :)

As for the people talking about "safe methods for wiping drives", the only place I (personally) know of that has such requirements is DIGO http://www.defence.gov.au/digo/ they use a furnace, works damn well. The moral of the story is, new drives are cheap, why fuck around with "maybe".

This is cool, yes, but the emphasis on "first" seems a bit off.

The vague, hyped up and imageless press release is typical of the new management's style. The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation signed an unconditional surrender to M$ in May. I found those pictures when I visited the official media release and saw Steve Ballmer instead of scram jets in the image gallery. It's almost like they did this on purpose, just to show you that Vista is being accepted by any government agency.

This is cool, yes, but the emphasis on "first" seems a bit off.

The vague, hyped up and imageless press release is typical of the new management's style. The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation signed an unconditional surrender to M$ in May. I found those pictures when I visited the official media release and saw Steve Ballmer instead of scram jets in the image gallery. It's almost like they did this on purpose, just to show you that Vista is being accepted by any government agency.

Probably best to refer to the original press release:

http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/news/5118/

As it says, the test that took place is the first time flight data was taken from a certain design of scramjet, not scramjets in general. I think the media got a little carried away.

You missed another Americanisation. It's Defence Science and Technology Organisation. Check their website http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/. Not everyone uses Americanised spelling.

Virtual Worlds Are Worth 1 Billion Dollars

1 Billion ... muahahahaha ...

The wings on the F-14 don't fold like other planes. The wings sweep back for supersonic flight

A colleague has been involved in establishing the web site for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Museum. See www.defence.gov.au/raaf/raafmuseum.

Yes, this is also off-topic! :-)

"Unfortunately, the engineers designing these things aren't pilots or air traffic controllers and have no idea how our airspace works. (They work fine in Iraq, but that's a war zone with no civilian aviation.) Apparently engineers do know how to weasel our tax dollars to fund their overpriced remote control toys."

If AI was smart enough to fly an airplane, why aren't they flying airliners?

A colleague of mine is the project manager for the HyShot trial. It is being conducted at the Australian Defence Force's Woomera test and evaluation range and shooting north-west across the Australian desert.

Woomera and nearby areas has a long history of trials; several British designed rockets were trialled there, and several satellites were launched to earth orbit. Maralinga was one Australian site of British atom bomb tests in the late '40s and '50s.

HyShot is intended to be recovered, but it is a large area in which it might land. Watch this space!

One Hundred... _B_illion Dollars!

I had a narcissitic, abusive, borderline insane advisor; a big shot who got in popular magazines and everything.

Just a wild guess here, but was your advisor this guy?

1. Are you a Primary Producer? [read Farmers and Miners]

The Primary Producers have so much sway even in this day and age. They get more access to sell Tin/ Chrome/ Wool/ Lamb and the technology and intellectual capital gets shoved under the rug.

This is what has occurred here.

Australia is entirely dependent on US for defence as well. The Australian Army has enough ammunition for 3-5 days of full combat. There is almost always a few days lead time before invasions, and these two combined is designed for enough time for the US to step in and back us up. This is why Australia is so closely aligned with the US.

Australia is content having the Brain Drain. To the politicians on both sides, the net benefit outweighs the loss of innovation.

But what do we do when the current supply runs out? Fitting ordinance which is no longer manufactured when we do not have the means to manufacture it ourselves seems pointless.

I looked into the torpedo thing. It looks to me like Australia is buying US MK48 ADCAP torpedos. That is the standard US sub torpedo. If that is what is being bought, that will be around for a very loooooong time.

the forty year old sea sprite helicopters are being delivered in a year or two.

Found them. It is a helicoper that was originally designed almost 50 years ago, but has been regularly updated. It looks like they are still being made. The US Navy still uses them. New Zealand bought some too, and they seem to think they will be a powerful addition to their fleet. I don't think that I would we sweating that one too much either..

lot has been written as to why the M1 tank is not suitable with small mobile forces

For a small, mobile force, the real question isn't Leopard or M1. The real question is: tank or something else. Tanks are heavy, including the Leopard, and that is the real killer when it comes to mobility, especially by air. The M1 and all of its contemporaries (Leopard 2, Challenger, Le Clerc) are all too heavy to move by anything but the largest aircraft. The Leopard 1 is only marginally better. If small and mobile is what is needed, then it is time get get something like the AMX-10RC. I don't think that will happen though.

For what its worth, the Australian Army wants a force that is capable of combined arms operations, which is reasonable. That generally means you want to have tanks available. If you are going to have tanks, they better be good ones given the increasing lethality of hand held anti-tank weapons. If you don't have good tanks, all you get is human torches jumping out of a brewed up tank.

Today, the Leopard is extremely vulnerable compared to the M1 in terms of armor protection. The M1 can hit and kill a target at a considerably longer range. You are much better off with M1s than Leopard 1s if you are going to have tanks. If you aren't going to have tanks, I will let you break it to the men in 1st Armoured Regiment.

Cheers.

One last thing. I'm not sure where you are getting your defense related information from, but as far as I can see from the quick looks that I took, your sources are not serving you well.

I was just discussing this with Rodney Brooks at the DSTO today, and essentially the answer is that it shows that the company can deliver high tech solutions. A lot like the F1 grand prix, really, mostly advertising and some blue sky research.

You want an example? Try the HoveRoc, which later became Nulka (p6). For a measly couple of million dollars, Australia produced the first few working units. America then spent tens (70?) of millions of dollars just developing a tethered rocket that hovered, and later they "co-operated" (read: bought/bribed their way into the technology) with Australian development.

The USA has a long history of turning down technology Not Invented Here (the Brit's Hawker Harrier "jump jet" being a classic; America changed its collective mind after an admiral found himself suddenly facing a rack-full of missiles at a range of about fifty feet during a joint exercise) - but once you melt down American hubris, the actual engineering is usually excellent (another classic example being American-built Spitfires, which you could park over a mirror without fear after a mission, whereas the Brit-built Spitfires often coated their windscreens with leaked oil, forcing the airmen to slide back the lid in order to see for landing). And as I mentioned above, there is an awful lot more of it; the American Navy is fond of looking for rowlocks on Royal Australian Navy vessels. Yawl probably have more tonnage in most State navies than Australia has overall.

Having hammered that point, yes, I agree that the problem is stomach. Israeli aircraft are never hijacked, because the hijackers know that they're dead within seconds of making themselves known. Israel has - or more particularly Israelis have - zero tolerance for hijacking, so it doesn't happen. America prevaricates, so their 'planes get hijacked. Israel has lots of things wrong with it, but lack of will is not one of them.

ACT is *the capital* city of Australia, seat of federal government, part time home of australian pollies (politicians), home of australian federal public service, houses adf hq (moved from vic barracks in melbourne - my home), home of various australian intelligence agencies (asis, asio) , location for diplomatic embassies, etc. Also home of Australian National University, Andrew Tridgell of Samba and rsync fame.

Canberra is *not underfunded*. It is in a sense an *artifical* city created as a political compromise to house the australian capital - after a fight broke betweem Victoria and Sydney around federation around 1901. The solution Canberra, a territory created in the NSW outback. Its sole purpose it to house government and its associated functions.

as for being less influential ... in australia its the national capital and houses the federal government - q.e.d. As for the rest of the world ... what does it matter?

Here is an article about an Australian system which simulates several aspects of land warfare. It's realistic and accurate enough that the Australian Army uses the rifle range simulation to qualify its soldiers on marksmanship. I believe that it is based on a popular Linux distro.

Here is an article about an Australian system which simulates several aspects of land warfare. It's realistic and accurate enough that the Australian Army uses the rifle range simulation to qualify its soldiers on marksmanship. I believe that it is based on a popular Linux distro.

Also, dsto and another unit

jm

What, like the Australian Jindalee Over The Horizon Radar?

Edinburgh is co-located with a large lab of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation which influences whether Australia will buy the birds.

Hmm lets see here...

• Kellogs Corn Flakes
• The Owen sub-machine gun
• The Boomerang
• Black box flight recorder
• Polymer bank note
• The Orbital engine
• Hills hoist clothes line
• Vegemite
• refrigeration
• first feature length film - "The Kelly Gang" 1906
• first movie review - 1907 published in the Bulliten magazine
• pernament crease trousers (1957)
• The world's first milk bar opened in Martin Place, Sydney, in 1933, offering "milk shakes" for fourpence (extra for an egg yolk). The idea was taken to Britain by an Australian entrepreneur in 1935
• the bionic ear
• the wine cask
• the torpedo - 1874 Lous Brennen
• The tank - 1912 Lance de Mole
• Paper machine gun belt (reduces jamming)
• the two-stroke lawn mower (victa)
• The Interscan aircraft landing system
• atomic absorption spectroscopy
• in vitro fertilisation and frozen embryo implantation
• snake bite antivenene
• The stump jump plough
• major contributions into the use of Penicillin & anit-biotics
• The notepad
• The Xerox photocopying machine (developed using research completed ay Sydney University in 1902)
• The electric drill
• Postage stamps
• First "round-the-world" airline
• automatic letter sorting machine (1930)
• Use of Lithium for depression treatment
• Latex gloves (1945)

Should I stop now?

One of these suckers, known as the Global Hawk, is flying across the Pacific to Australia in April next year. It's landing at an as-yet unnamed airfield that is being extensively surveyed so the bot knows the lie of the land, so to speak. Release is here&l t;/a>.

IIRC it can see stealth planes because normal radar hits the underside of the plane, while this radar hits the top of the plane, and the stealth planes aren't stealthy on top.

Naturally, authoritive details that this is the case are hard to find. Aussies will tell you this is because the Yanks are still pissed they spent so much time developing something 'invisible' and the Aussies immediately said 'We can see it.'

I can't say whether newer stealth planes are stealthy on top and therefore get around the initial failing.

IIRC it can see stealth planes because normal radar hits the underside of the plane, while this radar hits the top of the plane, and the stealth planes aren't stealthy on top.

Naturally, authoritive details that this is the case are hard to find. Aussies will tell you this is because the Yanks are still pissed they spent so much time developing something 'invisible' and the Aussies immediately said 'We can see it.'

I can't say whether newer stealth planes are stealthy on top and therefore get around the initial failing.

IIRC it can see stealth planes because normal radar hits the underside of the plane, while this radar hits the top of the plane, and the stealth planes aren't stealthy on top.

Naturally, authoritive details that this is the case are hard to find. Aussies will tell you this is because the Yanks are still pissed they spent so much time developing something 'invisible' and the Aussies immediately said 'We can see it.'

I can't say whether newer stealth planes are stealthy on top and therefore get around the initial failing.

Cryptographic software is, however, on the list of export-controlled goods. See for yourself (it's right at the bottom of the page). Furthermore, software "in the public domain" (and GPL or other Open Source is categorised as such) is expressly included in the restriction by the terms of the general software note (bottom of page, again). In fact, crypto software is the only software "in the public domain" that is still export-controlled. Gee, thanks for pushing that one on us, Uncle Sam! American cultural values should be export controlled.

But all is not lost, however. Australia doesn't have the alarmist attitude of the US on these issues, and so I'd feel much safer leaving crypto software on an Australian website than a US one. I get the feeling I'd be shot for treason in the US, whereas in Australia I'd get a slap across the wrist. Maybe.

In any case, you can apply for an export license, and if you are exporting to another Wassenaar signatory, there's no reason why you'd be knocked back. From that perspective maybe RSA are onto something. They'd better actually have a program to sell. Their steenking patents won't get them very far here, I'm pleased to say. Gee, at least I don't think so. I'd better double check we haven't adopted any boneheaded US patent laws as the result of some other treaty recently.

Permission to export will be much easier to obtain in Australia, because we aren't quite so paranoid as the US. Probably we figure we know so little of what's really going on that a bit of crypto won't hurt. "Hey -- if everyone else has crypto, we won't be able to eavesdrop on them! Will we notice the difference?" Most of the secrets which are of the most importance to us are probably held by the US Govt anyhow. Allies can be more dangerous than enemies sometimes.

I just resent the constraint it imposes on free speech. Why shouldn't I be allowed to work freely on open source crypto software on the net? Reconstructing the artificial boundaries of "state" that the net eliminates is annoying in the extremest extreme.

Cryptographic software is, however, on the list of export-controlled goods. See for yourself (it's right at the bottom of the page). Furthermore, software "in the public domain" (and GPL or other Open Source is categorised as such) is expressly included in the restriction by the terms of the general software note (bottom of page, again). In fact, crypto software is the only software "in the public domain" that is still export-controlled. Gee, thanks for pushing that one on us, Uncle Sam! American cultural values should be export controlled.

But all is not lost, however. Australia doesn't have the alarmist attitude of the US on these issues, and so I'd feel much safer leaving crypto software on an Australian website than a US one. I get the feeling I'd be shot for treason in the US, whereas in Australia I'd get a slap across the wrist. Maybe.

In any case, you can apply for an export license, and if you are exporting to another Wassenaar signatory, there's no reason why you'd be knocked back. From that perspective maybe RSA are onto something. They'd better actually have a program to sell. Their steenking patents won't get them very far here, I'm pleased to say. Gee, at least I don't think so. I'd better double check we haven't adopted any boneheaded US patent laws as the result of some other treaty recently.

Permission to export will be much easier to obtain in Australia, because we aren't quite so paranoid as the US. Probably we figure we know so little of what's really going on that a bit of crypto won't hurt. "Hey -- if everyone else has crypto, we won't be able to eavesdrop on them! Will we notice the difference?" Most of the secrets which are of the most importance to us are probably held by the US Govt anyhow. Allies can be more dangerous than enemies sometimes.

I just resent the constraint it imposes on free speech. Why shouldn't I be allowed to work freely on open source crypto software on the net? Reconstructing the artificial boundaries of "state" that the net eliminates is annoying in the extremest extreme.

Cryptographic software is, however, on the list of export-controlled goods. See for yourself (it's right at the bottom of the page). Furthermore, software "in the public domain" (and GPL or other Open Source is categorised as such) is expressly included in the restriction by the terms of the general software note (bottom of page, again). In fact, crypto software is the only software "in the public domain" that is still export-controlled. Gee, thanks for pushing that one on us, Uncle Sam! American cultural values should be export controlled.

But all is not lost, however. Australia doesn't have the alarmist attitude of the US on these issues, and so I'd feel much safer leaving crypto software on an Australian website than a US one. I get the feeling I'd be shot for treason in the US, whereas in Australia I'd get a slap across the wrist. Maybe.

In any case, you can apply for an export license, and if you are exporting to another Wassenaar signatory, there's no reason why you'd be knocked back. From that perspective maybe RSA are onto something. They'd better actually have a program to sell. Their steenking patents won't get them very far here, I'm pleased to say. Gee, at least I don't think so. I'd better double check we haven't adopted any boneheaded US patent laws as the result of some other treaty recently.

Permission to export will be much easier to obtain in Australia, because we aren't quite so paranoid as the US. Probably we figure we know so little of what's really going on that a bit of crypto won't hurt. "Hey -- if everyone else has crypto, we won't be able to eavesdrop on them! Will we notice the difference?" Most of the secrets which are of the most importance to us are probably held by the US Govt anyhow. Allies can be more dangerous than enemies sometimes.

I just resent the constraint it imposes on free speech. Why shouldn't I be allowed to work freely on open source crypto software on the net? Reconstructing the artificial boundaries of "state" that the net eliminates is annoying in the extremest extreme.