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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
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.
All behold the new Australian Space Society.
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.
No, they just release the launch clamps and let the rocket fall off the planet.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
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.
I think a good name for it would be National Australian Space Agency.
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
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
*sigh* ............ LOOK AT THE QUOTE. It doesn't say anything about where the satellite was launched FROM - it simply says Australia was the 3rd country to LAUNCH a sattellite.
We bought it, we paid for it, we built it, and we designed it. It was a Canadian-owned and operated scientific satellite. NASA got involved after we convinced them that they'd benefit from the collected data - they didn't think the technology was advanced enough for what we wanted to do.
I know a lot of Canadian, British and German countries that were involved in the design & development of the Abrams, too - but when was the last time you heard it referred to as the "joint American/Canadian/British/German/whatever M1"?
It was launched from Vandenburg AFB, after it was built in CANADA and shipped there. It was launched for CANADA, when CANADA paid them to.
Still a Canadian satellite, still years before the Australian satellite. Where it was launched FROM I didn't address, because that's not what I was correcting.
Dump on whoever wrote that ambiguous headline, not me.