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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?"
Have a habit of reannouncing existing spending, just with a new name.
Kangaroos in space!
Given the topic of the article, the obligatory position would be 20th post.
Funding of $40.0 million over four years will be available for the establishment of the Australian Space Research Program, which will support space research, innovation and skills development.
Funding of $8.6 million over four years will help establish a Space Policy Unit in the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research to coordinate Australia's national and international civil space activities, including partnerships with international space agencies.
Umm.. yeah. $10 million a year, until the next government gets in and cancels it. That should, umm, do a lot!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just a quick google so I am sure there's lot's more
How are they gonna fire them rockets right-side up?
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
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.
Australia is heavily involved in a number of satellite remote sensing initiatives. There is currently a push on to get international coordination on satellite sensor specs. I think this is about getting Australia a seat at that table.
Well, to be fair, they're not talking about launch capability, they're talking about satellite development..
But $40 million over 4 years isn't enough to make one sat and have it launched.
How we know is more important than what we know.
In space, no-one can hear the dingo taking your baby...
Just enough to fund the committee that will take four years to discuss whether an Agency is necessary.
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To put it in perspective, its enough to pay 100 peoples salaries/etc over the four year period. This assumes an average of $100k salary+benefits+overhead per employee, which seems if anything an underestimate for hiring people you'd want running a space program. Put another way, a non-ground-breaking, standard satellite like the ones used for broadcasting XM/Sirius radio in the US cost closer to $300M to build.
Not to say you can't do quite a bit with a small amount of money if applied right... theres certainly some interesting work you could do with autonomy and constellations with microsats that you might be able to do in that cost, particularly if a lot of its contracted out to universities (students are cheap labor).
Still, I find that number awfully low, and it sounds like simply playing politics... making a small thing sound more important than it is. Or maybe its additional funding on top of other things that are already going on.
But remember, we're Australians and we're already upside down. The sort of engineering we'll be doing is most likely 'reverse' engineering.
what does an island nation, sitting well below the equator, need with a space program anyhow
Allow me to rephrase the stupid troll's question: What all representative governments should ask before starting a new agency (and therefor cost center) is "what's in it for our taxpayers"? This is a completely valid question.
The nation's geographic situation does not come in to this equation except in the question of launch costs. Oh, and when did the continent of Australia get downgraded to island status? I missed that one.
riiiight. Cause outsourcing our satellite imaging to the americans is just so much more peaceful than doing it ourselves.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"form an ANZAC Space Agency together" So that'd be an Australia and New Zealand Army Corps Space Agency then?
I'm guessing "no".
My understanding is that this is part of the Defence Whitepaper's plan for Australia to develop orbital remote sensing that doesn't rely on asking the USA very nicely if we could please have some photos.
That much is pretty much safe from budget cuts in future. But everything else except pensions is now up for grabs. I know it's a recession blah blah blah but they just put in a $58 billion dollar deficit for this year alone, plus more to come. But it's OK, because Treasury predictions (which have NEVER been accurate) say that all the debt will all be paid off by unicorns and pixie dollars when GDP growth snaps up to 4.5% in a few years time.
When, inevitably, that does not happen, everything that's not discussable on talkback radio (like space science) will get fucked. The CSIRO will scraping along on patent money in just a few years from now, you watch.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Really? The CSIRO also does "research only", and were the ones that developed all of the wireless technology the world now relies upon. If by "fail" you mean "world-changing technological success" then yes, I agree.
(Of course, the corporate world tried to rip them off by not adhering to their side of the agreement with respect to patents, but that issue has been resolved in the CSIRO's favour.)
No, we won't be launching any manned space expeditions any time soon. However, if the research is well-directed and the funds well utilised, we may yet develop some very useful technologies applicable to space science (presumably these technologies would also have spin-off uses for society at large).
Furthermore, if this space agency does prove itself capable of producing said useful technologies, their funds will surely be boosted in the future.
You can't go from zero to hero at the blink of an eyelid. Nobody is going to pony up $50 billion to give to a group of people who haven't proven they can do anything useful with it. That doesn't mean it should be cancelled. An initial small investment to test the waters and see how it develops is a useful strategy for developing an industry.
Your all or nothing approach is ridiculous when applied to the field of research. If all research grants were at the mercy of people who thought like you, the abacus would still be the most powerful computer in the world.
I'm an Aussie. I love space.
But really - I'm quite happy to let the USA (and other countries) spend the money on space. It needs to be done. It's good it's being done. But for the time being - I'm happy to sit and watch.
Of course - if we think we can make this a commercially sound venture - go for your life.
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!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
That is going to buy a heck of a lot of Mentos and Diet Pepsi, even after you take out the International Expert consulting fee from the Mythbusters.
I also didn't mention anything on facilities, furniture, computers, paperwork, power, phone, internet, etc. I was just trying to give a sense of how small that amount of funding is.
That depends on how they're doing it. If they give money to universities that are already doing something in that area, desks and computers and paperwork and power and internet are already largely paid for and they can plough some of that money into getting the wacademics already there to research and build shiny toys. Plus, universities are sometimes quite good at making use of government money - look what happened at MIT and Stanford and various other places when Licklider and his successors splashed all that ARPA money around in the sixties, and the long-term good that came out of that.
An Australian Space Agency? So they are finally going to explore the Outback? About time too !
I know the parent is a troll but...
./ to render a proper degrees symbol.
Using " to indicate degrees as I haven't figured out how to get
Australia's most northern point is 10"41 S (cape york, QLD), the US's most southern point is 18"56 N in Hawaii or 24"33 N on the US mainland (Key West, Fl)
Australia's most northern capital city Darwin, NT is 12"29 S whislt the US's most southern capital city is Florida, FL is 25:46 N
Australia's biggest problem is that it's fairly low lying country but really so is Florida, where Cape Canaveral is located. As I pulled all of this out of Google Earth fairly quickly I don't have avg elevations for NT, QLD and FL.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As (possibly ;-) ) heard in a pub recently...
"Look. Its not a foolproof plan but its still pretty bloody awesome. The pollies and their gready wanker mates have ruined the planet. Our country might cop it up the arse harder than any other poor bastard. So, we go with their grandiose bloody scheme and when it comes time for them to bugger off, we create a diversion, give 'em space suits with dodgy visors and pack 'em into a welded-up bus with lox flowing down the sides and pull the lever on a bloody big rubber band! Voosh! Hello Great Southern Bight!
Then we can grab ours beers, our horses, dogs, sheep, cats and sheilas and piss off in the real one. Waddya reckon?..."
The following is fairly negative, but is posed honestly, not as flamebait, troll or other such nonsense.
It seems to be becoming a standard /. format to raise a topic, pose a question, and then proceed to discuss the issue and/or raise more questions as though the answer to the first was affirmative. The result is something that looks like it belongs in Ask Slashdot, and makes sense mostly if you read it while nodding vigorously. The real answers to the questions could often be found by doing some real research on the subject, but that doesn't happen as it would disrupt the chain of wishful thinking. The same could be said of locating information disproving the imaginary thesis, but that's even less likely to occur.
Space science encompasses pretty much anything that goes on over that magical 100 km altitude, even studying things up there from down here as well as technology associated with such work. $10M/year could fund your traditionally fine radio telescope program. It could as easily apply to using that hardware to support a space based radio-location (ie. GPS) program or even satellite relayed telecommunications. $10M/year might be able to get stretched to develop a sounding rocket if you scrimped by using something like Indonesia's sugar based solid fuel motors. It could also get swallowed whole easily maintaining your existing launch sites and related infrastructure. $40M would cover the initial training of a shuttle mission specialist but not the technical training for a specific mission. Many space related projects could be funded by the budgeted amount, except a "space program", taken to mean something like an Aussie spam-in-a-can riding into the black in an Aussie capsule on top an Aussie booster -- a home grown manned space flight program. Ain't gonna happen for that amount. That amount over 4 years might be able to fund the development of an administration and engineering group capable of doing something like that at some later date for a much greater amount. Given such an organization, that amount/time frame could go to make good progress on the proposed Ausroc LCLV, but almost certainly not enough to finish it.
Australia has a decent record of booster and payload/program development and execution without having burdened itself with a top heavy centralized administration. Sites have been operating quite well on an independent basis. For instance, Woomera has operated 15 pads and launched well over 500 missions in the past half century without a hint of need for an oversight agency. It's fairly inactive now but could wind back up if needed for the Ausroc or similar projects. Other sites have similar records, and the cumulative national record is impressive (see http://www.astronautix.com/country/ausralia.htm ). It ain't broke. Don't fix it. Have the sense not to replicate programs long since superseded elsewhere, such as early (ie. Mercury and Gemini) NASA, when one could obtain far more for the money via partnering with present day US or Russian programs. Sure, you could develop a manned program, or you could put that money to better use and get more out of it, as you have been all along.
And please do your homework so you can jump past the leading questions rhetoric and approach it from a position that lends to more fruitful discussion. If the quoted figures are your actual budget, then it was discussed and voted on. That means your own representative politicritter was at least peripherally involved, and an inquiry in their direction could well provide much more solid information (or at least proposed intentions) than the referenced vagaries and attached hypotheticals.
Finally, a piece of synchronicity. As I was writing this the following fortune/tagline was at the bottom of the page: "Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it."
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Oh Lordy, i can imagine if the aussies find alien life first...
"You call that a ruby dye laser? Now *this* is a ruby dye laser!"
This is a knife!
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
First order of business: how to harvest water ice from space?
What will they call this new agency? It's Australian, and it'll probably serve our local region too. And space is "the final frontier" so the primary role of this agency is exploration.
Australian Regional Space Exploration. How's that sound?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
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.
Yeah, and they'd pilot a vehicle called the Australian National Uranus Spacecraft. It's practically recursive.
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?
That's a funny name. I would've called it The Ministry of Spaceborne Chazzwozzers.