Australia, it happens was the fourth nation to send a ballistic object into space. This gets forgotten, in the hub-bub of NASA and International Space Stations. There was a time when this sports-nut nation actually had a Space policy. Since then, we've backed off into tax policies and microeconomic reform and Republican issues, but we were once a nation of Star-gazing darers. There. I said it.
Googling Australian Space Policy gets you this. Clicking on the first article there gives us this wonderful page that dates to the latter part of the Second Millennium (1997-1998 to be exact.). Of particular interest is this bit at the end of the Introduction:
Current government administrative arrangements for space have now split into a practical development program (FedSat) under CSIRO, with broader policy matters still retained within DIST. As a legacy of past myopia and minuscule budgets, only now is the bureaucracy reaching a degree of familiarity with space systems and international legal requirements. Space policy has probably had more reviews than any other area in the portfolio, but finally there is now a move towards defining specific space industry policy.Now, I don't know about everybody else, but does this sound like an aggressively forward looking document to you? I'm perplexed by the detached, bureaucrat-ese with which the page is oozing. I clicked on the bit that is titled 'Space Futures' and go this for an opening paragraph:
There remains a strong popular interest in astronomy and space exploration, though at a basic level of understanding. Fascination with the search for life in space, on Mars and nearby stars has not extended to public support for practical Australian space programs. Critics of space exploration view it as exploitation on a grand scale. If appropriate space policy is to survive, it must address Earth's issues and proper socioeconomic goals for us.
Can we all expect to tour in Earth's orbit in the near future perhaps staying at a space hotel, or cruise the spaceways in a liner? Some believe that the space tourism era is here now. With the development of international standards for airspace traffic control, trade, and routes for transport, such as those that exist for airlines, then 'spacelines' may follow, they believe. National and international policies to encourage market growth and investment through a global spaceways forum may well set the policy, standards, regulations and protocols for the future. Past Cold War era space programs excluded public participation. There are thus no space policies to allow public involvement and market development. Governments may have an economic public welfare role to encourage private investment in the space sector for long term benefit. Space development with public involvement may be a necessary policy vision.
Space Tourism!! Canberra thinks the future of Space (and by logical extension the Australian Vision for our future in Space) is turning Space into the Goldcoast in the Sky. So there it is. We paid tax money for this guys, and if this isn't the grossest form of exploitation, I do not know what is.
The Second entry on google is this page which was written in 1991. While well reasoned and more persuasive of the necessity for an Australian Space Policy, the paper sadly dates from the Hawke Prime Ministership. let's face it, it's pre-Shane Warne. While the recommendations at the end read like a hastily written to-do list, it's doubtful anything has been seriously undertaken since those heady days when Nick Farr-Jones captained Australia to a Rugby World Cup Victory.
Now, Third up on the google list is this page, which looks more promising. Except when i clicked on the Space Policy link, I got this page to do wtih energy. In fact most of the other links go absolutely nowhere. So much for the promise.
The fourth entry gets you this nothing page with the depressing news that the Australian Space Office ran from 1987 and was closed in 1996. My guess? John Howard's hatchet job. (Sorry DDB, but you gotta call a shovel a shovel, because that's what you shovel with). Okay, it's not quite a nothing page; it's better that it's there than not, but hell it's depressing.
After that, the list is positively dismal if you haven't lost faith already. So that's the State of the Nation when it comes to our Space Policy.
- Art Neuro