We really need to spend more money in this space especially as Global Boiling becomes a thing. We can learn so much about what the climate is doing and how to prevent major disasters.
This is very shortsighted along with cancelling some Antarctic research. Space is where Australia needs to be investing heavily to secure future high value industries.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The observation program was intended to fund satellites that would be used to provide data for everything from weather forecasting to GPS to natural disaster response.
“This is an industry-wide hit,” Bec Shrimpton, the director of Defence Strategy and National Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) told 7.30.
In an interview with 7.30, Science and Industry Minister Ed Husic denied the decision to cut the billion-dollar program was politically motivated, and said it was about making savings in the budget.
“I understand that people won’t be fans of cutting a billion dollars of funding that was going to be directed towards their sector … But I’ve got to make calls as a minister and as part of a broader government that is trying to rein in a budget deficit.”
We also made a definite decision around allowing the space sector to be able to access the $15 billion national reconstruction fund," he told 7.30.
“We are scanning the sub-surface for resources, whether that’s critical minerals or water on the moon and Mars,” Mr Pearson told 7.30 from Fleet’s Adelaide workshop.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
There’s some nuance missed here.
The “observation program” mentioned here, was a $1.2 billion program that was announced in the last days of the previous government.
There were no contracts, no tenders, just a vague proposal with a nebulous tax funded dollar figure attached.
The sector as a whole was using that announcement to entice investors in their own startups.
Now that it has been axed, the startups are struggling to gather further financing in what looks like a shaky industry.
Article should read Australian Space Industry DOA. How were we ever gonna compete with the reusable falcon 9?
We have locally made Falcons from Geeling that have been reused hundreds of times and take up plenty of space.
Australia needs to invest way more into research and development overall. It’s really quite sad that governments don’t understand the value of programs like this and the Antarctica one.
