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An Australian Space Agency At Last?
Dante_J writes "In the Australian Federal budget presented last night, as well as big national infrastructure spending, an amount of $48.6 million over four years was allocated for an 'Australian Space Science Program.' Normally a space program is managed by a space agency.
Does this now mean that Australia will follow the recommendations of the Senate Space Science report and give up its rather inadequate title of the only top-20 GDP nation not to have one? With nations like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Bulgaria forming or maintaining space agencies, this government infrastructure is obviously not limited to G-20 nations. Discussions to combine Australian and New Zealand airspace have been undertaken; should that translate to aerospace too, and both nations form an ANZAC space agency together?"
Well drag me to hell...what does an island nation, sitting well below the equator, need with a space program anyhow.
Because future technology may come out of space science and astrophysics. Things like GPS and satellite communications are already here now. But to really benefit from advancements, you have to be properly in it.
And then there's the 'prestige' of not having to send people overseas. It's a good thing that space science is getting funded in Australia along side other scientific disciplines and hospitals.
The Australian New Zealand Army Corp Space Agency?
I'd prefer ANZSA - sounds like answer (in an aussie ascent)
You ask it, they find it!
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I've never understood the bipartisan bad attitude towards investing in science and technology in Australia.
Any funding of science and technology tends to be political in nature; take a look at some of the CRCs, which tend to either be politicians' pet projects, or freebies for somebody's support base. The CSIRO (the Australian equivalent of the Max Planck Institute or NSF, and one of the biggest of its kind on Earth), is really a huge giveaway to the primary and extractive industries.
I think it's because Australian leaders don't understand the importance of science and technology. I also think it boils down to the traditional Australian distrust of all that is too 'clever'; we'd rather stick to growing things and digging shit out of the ground rather than value-add.
The potential benefits of a military space program are obvious. When you realise that it takes six hours to cross Australian airspace by plane, you realize that that's a lot of ground to cover. Why there aren't half a dozen Australian-owned military birds already flying is a minor miracle of short-sightedness and stupidity. And it's extremely naive for Australian defence planners to always assume that the US won't screw us over when we need them the most.
And a civil space programme would do wonders for building sorely-needed industrial capability, and interest in science and technology. It doesn't even have to be expensive: do what the Canadians do, pick a niche, and get really, really good at it. For instance, advanced life support systems, or something like that... we don't HAVE to have our own launch vehicles.
I'm not holding my breath though.
Well I'm no Australian but considering the size of your population I seriously doubt promoting mostly national projects would help your scientists and the overall return on investment.
If all these European countries (having roughly a population similar to yours) have founded the ESA, this is precisely to share costs and having bigger projects. (see for example the special relationship between Canada and ESA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESA Why not Australia as well?