Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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.
This signature intentionally left blank
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.
Unlike the Liberal government, which just pulls existing public spending, sells national assets to their crony mates, burns the cash on useless services and calls it "privatization".
Hello Telstra sale. What did the public get for their money there? A short term tax cut. What did that tax cut cost us? A royal ass fucking from a now unleashed national monopoly.
Thanks Howard, you bushy eyebrowed hobbit.
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.
"form an ANZAC Space Agency together" So that'd be an Australia and New Zealand Army Corps Space Agency then?
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.
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.