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Australia Finally Creates Its Own National Space Agency (yahoo.com)
50 years after Australia became the third country to launch a satellite into space, they had another big announcement. An anonymous reader quotes AFP:
Australia on Monday committed to creating a national space agency as it looks to cash in on the lucrative and fast-evolving astronautical sector. The announcement came at a week-long Adelaide space conference attended by the world's top scientists and experts including SpaceX chief Elon Musk. It brings Canberra -- which already has significant involvement in national and international space activities -- into line with most other developed nations, which already have dedicated agencies to help coordinate the industry and shape development. "The global space industry is growing rapidly and it's crucial that Australia is part of this growth," acting science minister Michaelia Cash said in statement.
The Australian government estimates that the global space sector now drives $323 billion in revenue each year.
The Australian government estimates that the global space sector now drives $323 billion in revenue each year.
So, in the future, anyone going to the moon will need to watch their step so they don't trip over all those oversized Fosters cans that'll be laying around everywhere.
#DeleteChrome
These are the voyages of the AUS Boganprize, its continuing mission, to seek out and explore strange new sources of potable water, to boldly deforest where no cane toad has gone before...
Do you feel the same way about the interstate highway system? How about waiting for individuals to create their own justice system? Oh wait, that IS what libertarians want.
There are a whole lot of things that are too big for individuals to do. It's why we need government.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think that is our proposed launch technology.
If it is valuable to allocate resources to activities in space, then individuals can choose to invest their own damn resources in those activities; it is not the purpose of government to make such investments for people, especially against individuals' will.
The government can and will make an investment on the part of the individual and their community to benefit a nation as a whole. ...No, no not me, my mummy and daddy built the roads to everywhere I need to go, the schools I attended and the police to enforce the law.
NASA wasn't a kick-starter campaign you twat.
Most of the private enterprise now looking to space is still using government money.
Fucking libertards, you all drive on roads made by social contributions and for the most part, live in safe societies built by communities where governance gave them strength and collective resourcing.
Screw it I've already lost interest
The CSIRO was a world leading space agency. See AUSSAT and FedSat, and the technology that is now mainstream throughout the world.
But since CSIRO fails to deny climate change it is being disbanded.
Hence our 'new' agencies; except for the climate change one.
Don't be a selfish prick. If you don't want to be taxed, go live by yourself and derive nothing from other people or society. Otherwise you pay your dues.
Astronauts Cosmonauts Taikonauts Aussienauts?
Figuring out which way the toilet flows.
We have lots of space.
Until you mention the word "immigrant".
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Just like with all humanity some of them are certainly assholes. Not all of them. Just like CEOs, some of them are assholes, some of them aren't.
The problem with no regulations is that you're going from some assholes being in government, to every wolf for himself. That's not a solution given how involved humanity is right now.
Five hundred years from now, maybe. But for now we still need some checks, and government is the best we've got, even with some assholes in government.
We aren't America mate. Keep your own political ideologies to yourselves.
We're quite happy to have the government step in. Private companies have seen Australia have the worst internet infrastructure and outrageous bank fees.
We're only too happy for the government to step in and provide services such as the armed forces, medical care and education.
Of course, if you think the government has no place in the space industry you might want to tend to your own backyard first before decreeing how the rest of the world works.
Ha ha. And this is why the US has crappy healthcare and crappy broadband.
Nice of you to try it, though. Saves the rest of the world thinking it works.
50 years after Australia became the third country to launch a satellite into space,
While it's true that a satellite was launched from Australian soil, this was part of the British space program, with Australian involvement not extending much beyond allowing the British to build their launch site. The launcher and satellite were developed and built in Britain.
More wasted money and effort trying to reinvent the wheel.
If the nations of the world pooled their resources, funding and expertise into a single space program Humanity could have a self sustaining colony on both the moon and Mars within 15 years.
But no.
Instead Australia is going to spend how much money trying to get a "home grown" launch vehicle working? And how much more again to get an Australian into space on a rocket built in Australia by Australians?
I wish Australia luck, seriously. Maybe they will figure out how to do something better than anyone else has yet and everyone else will also benefit from it. But things could be so much better if the Nations of Earth worked together on developing space.
As it is I don't expect a human to walk on Mars within my lifetime, about 23 years if the actuarial table are right. Hells, even getting a back to the moon might be too much to ask. Never mind something awesome like an actual permanently maned base on the moon within that time. I mean really, when was the last time any Human went beyond LEO?
Strewth! Chuck another abo on the barbie and get me a tinnie out the eski, mate.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nobody's coercing you to live in a country that has an effective government, taxation, and public services. You're perfectly free to move to a country without any of those. By remaining where you are, you're voluntarily agreeing to abide by that country's social structure, which includes constitutional laws, a democratic government, taxation etc.
50 years after Australia became the third country to launch a satellite into space, they had another big announcement.
Australia's 1st satellite was launched November 29,1967. Canada's Alouette satellite made us Canucks the 3rd country behind the Soviet Union and the USA when it was launched September 29, 1962.
If they launch from the Grossglockner they are already out of the thickest part of the atmosphere.
What a load of balls. Oz government wont even finance a decent, not great, just decent, internet standard for the whole of Australia. Because that would instantly invalidate several 'broadband' licences currently enjoying lucrative profits.
As if they going to stump up a few billions to get it working, they cannot tax the population that much, it would mean 57% taxation across the board. And as we all know, that just means those who can pay, wont. Oz is a nice place, but it just cannot afford to play space race.
Train them like the 9/11 hijackers, they only need to know how to take-off, not how to land. Save budget money, half-price.
Hijackers generally don't do the taking off either.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Now they just have to dig a big tunnel through the earth, so they can launch from down under.
Current government having a bad run in the poll??? Look over there !!! A shiny new distraction (insert pie in the sky distraction here, ie. Space Agency), polls?, what polls??? Call my cynical, yep, I am....
I think a good name for it would be National Australian Space Agency.
That's one advantage of a country that does not have the laws of mathematics apply to them - it makes rocket science much easier!
What a shallow, transparent troll: You should be grateful you weren't blocked from Slashdot permanently.
It is the purpose of government to provide services that benefit its people. If you want to disparage the need or ROI of an Aussie space program, go ahead but quit the 'eevil gubbermint' rhetoric: Aussies think their government, although distracted by far-right stupidity, is better than your corporations.
Nonetheless, all space exploration is a difficult enterprise, so congratulation to Australia to pursue its upward goals and god speed to them!
You've got it backwards. Individuals first chose to travel paths, eventually wearing footpaths along common routes. Individuals first sought justice when perceived crimes were committed.
Only after lots of individuals had done and were doing these things, and proven that these things worked and were worthwhile, did they collectively agree that these things needed to be formalized, standardized, and centralized. Only then did they task their government to build highways and implement a criminal justice system. Government's role should mostly be focused on eliminating redundancies, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies which arise from lots of individuals trying to do the same thing in different ways. Those different ways are initially needed to quickly determine which way is the best way. But after a while all that individual trial and error makes clear which way is the best way, and people can collectively agree on how best to build something together.
Implementing something that no individual has done, like a space program, is a whole different matter. I won't say government shouldn't be investing in these things. But you have to be extremely careful that the government doesn't wind up pouring billions into a boondoggle. Having individuals travel the path first is a great way to weed out the bad paths, the things that sound good on paper but just don't work in real life, and the things whose costs simply don't justify doing them.
e.g. Rockets are ridiculously expensive. Prior to Sputnik, the U.S. correctly recognized that they weren't cost-effective, and was working on gradually working up to space by flying there. But because the U.S. and Soviet Union were in a cold war, after Sputnik was launched, it became a matter of pride to equal or better that feat before the other side. And the U.S. poured billions of dollars into rockets because it determined that that was the fastest way to obtain space launch capability..
Now that the cold war is over and countries are collaborating on space exploration and nobody cares about firsts anymore, the latest research is focusing on... flying into space because it's more cost-effective. Exactly what the U.S. was doing before it got sidetracked by hubris and bragging rights. If we hadn't shifted our spending into rockets, who knows, maybe we might have already had hypersonic transports today. That's the kind of misstep you want to avoid but is very easy to make when government strikes out on its own direction, without individuals first having tried the different possible solutions so we have empirical evidence of what works best.
Or a more modern example: GSM was developed by the EU government and mandated as a cellular standard. The U.S. refused to require it, and allowed individuals and companies in the U.S. to try different cellular standards. One of these was CDMA, which turned out to absolutely destroy GSM's TDMA when it came to cellular data. It was so obvious which was superior that within a year the GSM standard was amended to incorporate wideband CDMA for 3G data (that's why GSM phones could talk and use data at the same time - GSM phones had a TDMA radio for voice, a CDMA radio for data; CDMA phones onl
Australia has the worst internet infrastructure because it's one of the most geographically isolated countries. Getting Internet to the continent is more expensive, which raises the price floor, resulting in an overall lower level of service for a given population density at a given price.
Bank fees are outrageous because the country's economy is small (its population and GDP are less than Texas), so there are fewer transactions to/from the AUD resulting in higher exchange costs. And the currency has been relatively unstable the last 20 years, fluctuating in value by more than 100% against the Euro and USD relative to its low in 2001. This volatility represents a lot of risk for multi-national banks and companies doing currency exchanges to/from AUD, and that risk is reflected as higher bank fees "just in case" the currency's value plummets.
Canada has a similar problem with bank fees (its population and GDP are only about 50% bigger than Australia). This is one of the reasons the EU wanted so desperately to create a single currency for all its member countries. (You'll also notice that Canada ranks much higher than Australia in Internet speeds, despite similar population, population density, and population distribution. The difference being Canada doesn't need trans-oceanic cables for Internet.)
rocket scientist edition.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Are you really trying to equate individuals wearing footpaths along common routes with the building of the interstate highway system?
No, individuals didn't "seek" justice. They took it if they were strong enough. Before governments, most people just had to suck up whatever "justice" the warlord wanted to impose. "Justice" was only for the biggest bully.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Would you Ron Paul fanboys shut the fuck up? You don't know the first thing about civics or economics. If you want to live in a civilized society then pay your taxes, vote for the politicians who you think will spend the money wisely, and get back to work.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It's always Rhonda's fault.
Well, it does very much depend on how the government steps in and what the next government decides to do about it, qv, the NBN, the ETS, the ABC, Medicare, negative gearing...