ROOM
94
Opinion
Duncan Blake
PhD candidate,
the University of
Adelaide, South
Australia
ROOM
is an open forum for comment and opinion - and actively encourages
contributions. To promote debate, discussion and inspiration we regularly
publish commentaries and opinions by space leaders and those involved
directly or indirectly in aerospace and space exploration. Here, with the
spotlight of the international space industry about to fall on Australia,
Duncan Blake asks if the country has become ‘lost in space’ and suggests a
new impetus might be afoot with the possibility of a national space agency
even in the offing.
A
delaide will host the International
Astronautical Congress (IAC) this
September - the biggest conference in the
global space community’s annual calendar
[1]. Australia, and particularly the state of South
Australia, has a long heritage in the space industry
stretching back to the Woomera rocket range and
long-range Weapons Research Establishment
(WRE) in 1947 and the launch of WRESAT in 1967 on
an American rocket from Woomera [2], which made
Australia the seventh nation to launch its own
satellite and only the third to do so from its own
territory. Yet, this was the first and only satellite
launched from Australian territory, prompting some
Australian politicians in the federal parliament to
initiate an inquiry in 2008 into how the country had
become ‘lost in space’ and what to do to
reinvigorate the Australian space industry [3].
Australia relies
heavily on its
relationship
with the
United States
for access
to space
infrastructure
and space
services
Call for Australia
to head back
into space
