Australian Sky & Telescope - June 2018

12 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE July 2018

SPACE FUNDING by Jonathan Nally

Australia’s new

space race

No longer lost in space, Australia

is finally to get its own space agency.

A

t long last, after decades of

inaction, years of lobbying and

countless missed opportunities,

an Australian federal government has

finally seen sense and has committed

to establishing an Australian national

space agency.

Foreshadowed earlier in the year, the

development comes after months of

study by an Expert Reference Group,

charged with advising the Government

on Australia’s potential as a player in

the global space market. That market is

currently estimated at $460 billion and

growing at about 10% per year.

On May 14 the Minister for Jobs

and Innovation, Michaelia Cash, made

the announcement everyone had been

waiting for.

“We have an extraordinary

opportunity to increase our share of

the growing global space economy,”

she said. “Space technologies are not

just about taking people to the Moon,

they open up opportunities for many

industries, including communications,

agriculture, mining, oil and gas.

“An Australian space agency will

support the long-term development

of space technologies, grow our

domestic space industry and secure our

place in the global space economy,” the

Minister added.

A sense of relief

The announcement earlier this year,

and May’s confirmation, was met with

a feeling of relief by those in Australia’s

space sector, many of whom had feared

that this would be another false alarm.

After all, over the past 30-plus years

there had been several reports presented