It's Official, Australia Needs a Space Agency 199
Dante_J writes "In the final report published by the Australian Senate inquiry into 'The Current State of Australia's Space Science & Industry Sector' entitled 'Lost in Space? Setting a new direction for Australia's space science and industry sector,' it calls for the formation of a 'Space Industry Advisory Council' to oversee the creation of a fully-fledged Australian Space Agency. Of the top 20 GDP nations, Australia is the only one without a Space Agency, which impacts on many aspects of ordinary life, not to mention Research and Engineering endeavors. Every satellite operated by Australia is owned by another party and the costs of this alone are comparable to that of a Space Agency. The report is a tidy piece that drew upon submissions form Andy Thomas, and an impressive collection of Australian Academics and Space Science entities frustrated by successive generations of government apathy. While this report is welcome, lethargic Government action in a climate of competing concerns is not expected to stem the flow of Space Science brain drain out of Australia any time soon."
We're Aussies! (Score:2, Funny)
Can't be stuffed with that space stuff. 'slong as the cricket's on anyway ;)
Re:We're Aussies! (Score:5, Funny)
Australia is the only one without a Space Agency, which impacts on many aspects of ordinary life,
So, how does the lack of a Space Agency impact your cricket matches?
Re:We're Aussies! (Score:5, Funny)
Well there are those satellites up there that bounce the pictures to the TV right? They're in 'space'.
Now someone get me another beer!
Re:We're Aussies! (Score:5, Funny)
It's really just a grassroots effort to develop a method to send the politician's who came up with the idea for their 'net' filter into space...
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I expect every article that mentions Australia to have a 'Great Firewall of China' joke within 5 minutes...
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Re:We're Aussies! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, um, have you seen that India has a killer space program? Just mentioning....
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Wind cannot provide consistent power.
It can supplement other forms of power, but you cant rely on it.
You'd fry the power lines on a windy day and have massive brownouts on a still day if they did your plan.
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Surely there's been some ideas floating around to deal with this, right? Nuclear plants that can be throttled when wind is up or just having remote wind generators using all that energy to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen?
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Australia is quite well suited for solar, I'd think.
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Let me introduce you to this amazing technology we have; batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage [wikipedia.org]
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No where near as efficient as generating power directly as required.
But at what cost? (Score:3, Informative)
Even after they put all that money into a lunar mission, Australia still has a better cricket team.
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Re:We're Aussies! (Score:5, Funny)
but informative you are not.
Is that you, master Yoda?
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but informative you are not.
Master Yoda, you are?
Fixed for you, I did.
It needs a clue first (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it should try to concentrate on getting rid of some of the laws that take away freedoms in that country. Stop trying to filter the Internet into the ground. I dunno, how bout generally pulling it's head out of its ass.
I am speaking to the politicians of course, not the regular people. How can a government be so forward thinking as the people in this article desire it to be, when it so backwards thinking about the rest of it's policies?
Of course, what the hell am I talking about. I live in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave! We have *none* of those same problems.
The only reason NASA exists in my country is because it ALREADY EXISTS. If you have to convince politicians to fund it today, nothing would ever get done. It took a cold war, a charismatic President, and national pride to get our asses into space.
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You're a troll but I'm going to feed you.
I am speaking to the politicians of course, not the regular people.
You fail. The voices of reason that you have been hearing here on Slashdot are the minority. The vast majority of Australians think the Internet needs filtering. They actually like the fact that certain films are banned in Australia. These are the people who had police intervene earlier this year to prevent a Bill Henson exhibition from showing images that were later given a PG rating by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. Had the classification bo
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:5, Interesting)
The vast majority of Australians think the Internet needs filtering.
Citation needed. Because as an Australian the only time I hear about internet filtering is here at slashdot. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Australians know about the government's plans, let alone have an opinion on them.
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the internet is opposed by 80-90% of Australians the polls that I've seen, it's that unpopular. Rudd is quite conservative/religious and even though most Australian's aren't, the small religious population voted for him and he needs to repay the favour, by targetting porn
Why the religious just leave everyone else the hell alone
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The policy is the spawn of "Family" First Senator Fielding, who is the spawn of the Paradise Community Church.... but anyway...
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:4, Interesting)
I second that, and most of those who have heard of it, will have also heard it all before. Our government has been planning to filter the net on and off since it 's conception. The reason for this is that with proportional voting we often have an independent that can hold the balance of power in either house on a split vote. In this case the senator in question is called Fielding from the "family first" party. KRuddy is buying Fielding's vote to pass funding for bigger fish throgh the senate by throwing money at a system he knows will never be implemented, Howard did the same thing by kissing up to Hanson and the "one nation" party.
It's a quirk of the system that keeps morons busy and occasionally creates the wonderfully democratic irony of people who promote censorship demanding to be heard in parliment. The whole thing is nothing more than a "Yes minister" epsiode that has been repeated so often it's no longer funny.
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The greens are against the bill and all of the sentors not in the oposition would have to suport this [efa.org.au]
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Fielding will be dealt with in the same way as Hanson - exposed, ridiculed and then ignored.
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Citation needed. Because as an Australian the only time I hear about internet filtering is here at slashdot. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Australians know about the government's plans, let alone have an opinion on them.
I played some backyard cricket with some friends of mine on Sunday and mentioned the filter plan off just casually and was surprised when everyone gave me blank looks. I was with two lawyers, someone that works HR at a law firm, a systems architect - basically a bunch of people that read the news and lead active digital lifestyles and tend to know stuff like this, and they were blissfully unaware of the filter plan.
So I think you're spot on.
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The vast majority of Australians think the Internet needs filtering.
Also, I've read a Scientific American issue about privacy in the computer age and many studies showed that Privacy in general is a dying concept. People just don't care about it anymore.
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just untrue. People don't understand it. Privacy to most people is still quite physical.
If I go to pee in my bathroom can somebody see me? No? Then I have privacy.
Do I have blinds and/or curtains on my windows? Yes? Than I have privacy.
The average person cannot understand, visualize, and basically even begin to comprehend that there is another dimension of reality we have created called cyberspace. That information flows back and forth in this dimension and has very real effects and serious consequences in our real world, "meatspace". This is not hyperbole. It is an absolute fact of our existence right now.
Unless you have experienced it directly, or have a more sophisticated understanding of it, you would have a very hard time understanding the interactions between your personal information in cyberspace and the "real world".
When you do finally explain to this to them, their lack of privacy, and how this lack of privacy can have real negative effects on their lives.... it becomes important to them all of the sudden.
You need to stop perpetuating this myth that people have an informed decision about privacy and still choose to look at is as antiquated and unimportant. I have met VERY few people that actually feel this way and ALL of them have a VERY sophisticated understanding of it and deliberately choose to live in a world with absolutely no privacy and/or anonymity. They make interesting and intelligent arguments about it's function in a higher society.
They are the exception. Most people are just ignorant and think "Privacy" is about protecting their naughty bits.
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Unless you have experienced it directly, or have a more sophisticated understanding of it, you would have a very hard time understanding the interactions between your personal information in cyberspace and the "real world".
When you do finally explain to this to them, their lack of privacy, and how this lack of privacy can have real negative effects on their lives.... it becomes important to them all of the sudden.
Then explain people who, having had that explained, continue on with the 'nothing to hide, noth
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Re:It needs a clue first (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a troll, and I don't mean to deliberately offend anyone. My country is just as bad.
I do see many of those laws and policies in Australia as dangerous towards freedoms. They are backwards, shortsighted and stupid. Australia is not alone either. I think there is a "race to the bottom" between the US, UK, and Australia as far as this goes anyways.
Somehow I doubt there are really that many Australians that want to be censored and have their freedoms taken away in exchange for *anything*. If you are really right about that, then yes I guess in this case the government is actually representing the will of the people. You will have to forgive me, I just find that shocking and unusual.
As for the academics making intelligent cases about policies that will actually benefit Australia it might be cynicism that makes me believe that a government so shortsighted and stupid with the rest of its policies could even listen and take action based on rational discourse.
Once again, I am not trolling with those statements. I honestly have no faith left in most governments that they can do the right thing at this point and hearing about Australia trying to take such an ambitious step to benefit it's people just brought out the cynicism in me.
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Australia is not alone either. I think there is a "race to the bottom" between the US, UK, and Australia as far as this goes anyways.
I live in Brazil and there's a law being discussed to do almost the same thing they are doing in Australia. I might be wrong, but it seems to me there's a general race towards government control of the net (wich has been widely discussed here before).
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you are wrong.
Trot out that "terrorism" bogyman and citizens will happily give up all freedoms for security and protection from the terrorists that are hiding in their bushes.
I have many arguments with people that firmly believe that even checking in at checkpoints as they drive to work is worth it to fight terrorism.
Then they get angry at me when I say, "Nice to see you are with us comrade." in my best Russian accent. They simply do not understand that they are incredibly stupid to give away freedom for s
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as apposed to countries like china or any asian or middle eastern country, which are just beacons of freedom
No, they are 'the bottom'.
Re:It needs a clue first (Score:4, Informative)
I think the "vast majority" of Australians you refer to is a bit of an overreaction. You're making sweeping generalisations based off of nothing. It's true that there are a lot of conservatives over here, but there are also a lot of die-hard civil rights groups.
In fact, just yesterday, a "Sex Party" has announced that they are running for parliament. I am not kidding [news.com.au]. They are focusing on freedoms such as net neutrality, no censorship on the net, more liberal attitudes towards sex and sexuality (including gay marriage) and those sorts of things.
Of course, your assertions about people not caring about censorship are going to be very well tested, now that Senator Fielding has decided he wants all pornography banned by the filter.
They may be able to ban child porn and pro-terrorist sites without much of a fight. Maybe even racial hatred websites. However... things change when you get between millions of men and their (non-child) porn.
I hope Fielding's move proves the decisive error in this campaign and results in the long-overdue nail in the coffin of this festering turd of a bill.
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I don't base it on "nothing". I base it on living here. The closest we've ever had to a protest against the banning of books, films and other media is when Margaret Pomeranz from The Movie Show attempted to screen a DVD that had been refused classification and the police intervened [abc.net.au], and she complied. The protest subsequently fizzled. That's it. That's the most successful protesting that has been done regarding film censorship in this country. It's pretty obvious that people either don't care or are in
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Here's a poll for you, it's called voting. We've never made censorship an election issue. Maybe our next election will change that, but until it does, we've made our position pretty clear.
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Complete bollocks. The vast majority of Australians couldn't give a flying fuck about internet filtering.
A vocal minority might be lobbying for filtering. The government probably knows it's an ineffectual waste of time but has a go anyway so that minority sees it as "doing something".
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no, the vast majority don't... three people do... and unfortunately those three people are politicians and as such are trying to brainwash Aus into going along with it... Senator Conroy and SA's much loved premier Michael Atkinson (the douche who is single-handedly blocking an R rating for video games)... and of course the third is KRudd himself.
I haven't had a single conversation about the Great Australian Filter (GAF) where the other pe
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Then get out of your little self-constructed world and listen. Turn on 4KQ or any of the other "mainstream" talk radio stations. Note: youth radio doesn't count. Have a talk to people who use words like "Americanized" with a straight face. There's plenty of people out there who think "decency" exists and should be protected. These are the crazies that populate our country. Just because you and I are hip cosmopolitans doesn't mean Australia is no longer a backwater. For fuck sake, gays still get their
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Dude. The majority of Australians don't even have internet access. Obviously the comments on a web site are going to be pro-internet.
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As a fellow Australian I'm appalled that you consider the majority of your own country men to be such backward hicks that they would support internet filtering, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
If you have s
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I knew it was only a matter of time before you became all nationalist.
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> Maybe it should try to concentrate on getting rid of some of the laws that take away freedoms in that country. Stop trying to filter the Internet into the ground.
To set up a decent Autralian Great Firewall, you need to put down all those pesky satellites that allow illegal pirate connections.
Thus, the need for a space agency. How else would the autralian government put those intellectual property defending laser equipped sharks in orbit?
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You do realize the NASA was created by Eisenhower in 1958, not Kennedy? You do realize that Project Mercury started as a NACA project and thus predates NASA?
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The Cold War did not exist in 1958? Had no effect on why NASA was created? Those early projects before NASA were not funded by Cold War pressures?
I understand what you are saying, but it took Kennedy and a sense of national pride to accelerate the process to get us to the Moon by 69'. Not to mention significant Cold War pressures, as getting to the Moon was a statement about the power and benefits of our ideology versus the Commies.
All the technolo
hey aussies! (Score:3, Funny)
Truly yours and thanks in advance, cosmocain
Australian Space Research Institute (Score:4, Interesting)
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The closest Australia has to a Space Agency is the Australian Space Research Institute [asri.org.au]. It falls into the category of a serious amateur effort, staffed by volunteers and funded by donations. Underfunded Australian research programs tend to hit above their weight with innovative solutions, simply because they don't have the money to pay for a more conventional solution.
We should chuck them some money for some SpaceX launches.
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And yet we have a government paid institution for athletes. Truly our country is fucked up.
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And yet we have a government paid institution for athletes. Truly our country is fucked up.
While I would agree that having the AIS but no Space Agency does indeed make our priorities look somewhat backwards, I have no ill will whatsoever towards the AIS - in fact I think it should be expanded. Obesity and diabetes are becoming major health problems in our society and we need to get them down.
I would argue that the AIS does a wonderful job promoting sport and exercise in the community, and also provides a regular crop of "heroes" to inspire the kids. If anything it should be bigger, more swimming
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Obesity and diabetes are becoming major health problems in our society and we need to get them down.
And the professionalization of sport is no way to do that. When I was a kid we went out and played sport for fun - typically with little or no adult supervision. Now kids can't even kick a football around without some overzealous phys-ed teacher taking an unnatural interest in what could be their next big score. Even the once purely recreational codes such as "touch" football and indoor soccer/cricket have since become serious codes with commercial and nationalist interests.
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If anything [the AIS] should be bigger, more swimming pools, more ovals, more participation.
How about instead of funnelling resources for all of that to one elite body in Canberra the ovals and pools are built in population centres where the public could actually use them?
Mega sporting events and "heroes" encourage people to sit on their arses and watch them on TV. That's not going to help our health. The AIS and its already obscene funding level is part of the problem.
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If China or India choose not to join, so be it.
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There also is or rather was the the Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems [csiro.au] who were responsible for the FedSat. However this group was shut down in 2005 after its funding was cut.
I agree, but let's keep it in perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I could not agree more that AU should establish and fund (well!) a proper space agency. I would fucking LOVE that. Perhaps we could start by redirecting all allocated funding for that ridiculous internet filtering scheme.
But let's keep it in perspective. Australia has 21 million people. We're two thirds the population of California. The other city I spend a lot of time in, Tokyo, has more people than my whole god damn country. I think visitors and foreigners often get a mistaken impression about this country - sure, the cities are fairly large, but there's only fucking FIVE of them. It's a big country - I was born in South Australia, we have a military base there that is BIGGER THAN ENGLAND - but there's no people and kangaroos don't pay tax. Yet.
We're rich enough per capita, sure, but the volume just isn't there. For fuck's sake, we're closing down the entire Navy for 2 months for Christmas. We can't get enough people to staff our fricking marine defences (the most important, since we're an island) - but we're going to build a space industry now? With who?
What I would really like to see is some kind of cooperative effort. Why all this competition between nations, duplicated effort, and misplaced nationalism? We'd get so much more done if we pooled our resources and really worked together. And I don't mean in the manner of sclerotic, ineffective jaw-fests like the UN, I mean cooperate like allies in a war, which we're all pretty good at.
We need a war, then. A War on Not Being In Space! Come on, you apes! Do you want to live forever?
Obligatory comparison to Canada. (Score:2)
Canada: 30 Million people, has a Space Agency and "une agence spatiale".
Australia: 21 Million people, no Space Agency
Crikey, a project like the Canadarm would be cool, eh?
Re:Obligatory comparison to Canada. (Score:5, Funny)
Crikey, a project like the Canadarm would be cool, eh?
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For a country that still thinks "primary production" being their main industry is a good thing, I think we would be shooting ourselves economically in the foot.
We are a country whose children are taught that sport is the be-all and end-all of their education, there are a few good universities for the hard sciences, sure, but we have a nationally funded Institute of Sport, a mecca for a generation of kids who spend 3.9 years waiting for the next Olympics to start, so they can see their hero...
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I believe what we tell our kids these days is that students go to uni to get HECS debt when they could be earning big bucks doing trade jobs with just a high school education.. the suckers. The whole university = occupational training equation has been drummed into them so much that the current generation of university administrators believe it too. Our institutes of higher learning will soon be TAFE colleges.
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there are a few good universities for the hard sciences, sure, but we have a nationally funded Institute of Sport
Which is probably a good thing. The Americans don't, and it appears that all their colleges sell out academics in the name of sport. Why on earth do you get a scholarship for your sporting ability?
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Why on earth do you get a scholarship for your sporting ability?
Because colleges make a lot of money from their TV deals. Don't tell me you were thinking they were there to teach or carry out research, were you?
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"For fuck's sake, we're closing down the entire Navy for 2 months for Christmas. We can't get enough people to staff our fricking marine defences (the most important, since we're an island) - but we're going to build a space industry now? With who?"
So what do you guys do?
Post a sign stating, "dont attack, gone on holiday."
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No, we just get the flyboys to turn their F/A-18s into submarines [theage.com.au] for the holiday season...
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See here [wikipedia.org] for more info.
Coordinated effort (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe they can cooperate with other countries? In a various cases some of the countries mentioned are rather crowded and lacking in the land for such things. Seems that far out in the remote outback deserts of Australia would be a really *good* location for a launchpad or something of the like. No people, not necessarily a lot of wildlife, but still fairly accessible by air, etc.
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I was born in South Australia, we have a military base there that is BIGGER THAN ENGLAND
Really? Area: 130,395 km, 50,346 sq mi. Does it have anything meaningful in it, or is it just a large fenced off empty space? The base I mean, not England. :)
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That is just the 23 wards at the centre. The population of Greater Tokyo, which is what most people refer to when they say "Tokyo", is more like 35 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area [wikipedia.org]
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Close... Try FAFSFA
Bruce "Who's on the phone?"
Beryl "It's the Fucking Australian Fucking Space Fucking Agency again. They want to sell us some raffle tickets. They need $5000 to buy some hydrogen."
Bruce "What for?"
Beryl "I dunno!"
Bruce "Tell them to take a walk."
First Aussie on the Moon (Score:4, Funny)
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Try public transport first (Score:2)
I'm all for space research but the Australian Federal and State Governments couldn't organize a pissup in a brewery. Sydney's public transport is awful and continually getting worse. Our roads are getting clogged and the solution proposed is to increase taxes, raise fares, decrease the size of the carriages on our trains, and split up the network. Space travel? We can't even get from the suburbs into town!!!
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Our roads are getting clogged and the solution proposed is to increase taxes, raise fares, decrease the size of the carriages on our trains, and split up the network. Space travel? We can't even get from the suburbs into town!!!
That's the UK's answer too. Guess it's all part of the Anglo-Saxon economic model.
Australian space filter (Score:2)
They want to remove the dirty parts from space, like Uranus, and the full moon. And not to speak of the dirty images that appear when you connect the right dots.
Space Industry (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure. I'm with you, but I'm very pessimistic about getting our act together and actually doing it.
90% of our highly trained tech/science/computer grads and other highly skilled, get snapped up overseas.
Who's going to do it? Sounds like a promise that's hard to keep. I hope I'm proved wrong though.
NASA? (Score:3, Funny)
Hey! Maybe they can call it the National Australian Space Agency! That'll be real confusing.
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hmmm, I am surprised they dont have a space agency yet, which means they pay and depend on other countries for launching sats.
Yes, like 99% of the countries in the world.
OTOH The implications are too many, like they cannot secret sats like the rest of the world.
No, actually very few countries have secret satellites (I assume, anyway).
Our defence strategy is to hang on the coat tails of the USA. When the US president says something insightful (or just anything) our prime minister says something like way to go, GB and thus our international relations are forged.
The reality is that most countries can get by perfectly well without their own number plate resolving real time spy satellites and forward defence policies.
I
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When the US president says something insightful (or just anything) our prime minister says something like way to go, GB and thus our international relations are forged.
I thought Rudd didn't really like Bush all that much?
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... until the US and the Brits told us "not to worry about it", and that was the end of that ...
Well it was more that the UK was reluctant to spend too much money on their space program, even though they actually got Blue Streak rocket working as a space delivery system, which they launched from Woomera, Australia, which would have got all the business that Arianne now has.
Since the Australian governments space program at the time was tied to the UK effort (they wanted to have their very own space port which other countries would use, primarily the UK), and they had no native spacecraft research progr
The UK govn was very short sighted (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't remember the exact quote but I think the government at the time saw no future in satellite comms. Another triumph for arts educated politicians with all the technical insight of Mr Bean and the foresight of a comatose goldfish.
Re:I heard we had a fledgling agency in the 50's . (Score:2)
To be serious, apparently a few useful things came out of early projects like blue streak. NASA contracts work out all over the world so there are Australian efforts in things like scramjets, skin tight spacesuits and hubble telescope parts. I had the luck to have a few classes presented by Ray Stalker so got to hear enough about orbital mechanics, hypersonic flight an
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{
$local_country is generally a very disorganised place. This is somewhat surprising given the excessive tiers of government.
It is well understood by most $local_country_citizens that if you want to retire in comfort then you should get a job (for life) with the government.
However despite all of the busy-bodies supposedly governing the place, nothing much works properly.
Anyhow, I am hoping we might get decent $arr_lacking_programs, before trying for a $unpopula
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Excessive tiers of government? There are three (Federal, State, Local) and they don't overlap much. Federal has tax and the military, the states handle police and education, and local handles parks and rubbish collection.
Oh sorry, I didn't spot the poor troll attempt.
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Thank you for spelling 'arse' properly.
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HUMOR, not off-topic! (Score:2)