The Australian Government aims to put another Australian astronaut into space. Pictured is Paul Scully-Power (right), the first Australian-born person to fly in orbit, in the mid-deck of the space shuttle Challenger during flight STS-41-G in 1984. Courtesy NASA.
The federal government has announced more than $65 million in extra funding to fast-track Australian technologies into space sooner and to boost sovereign launch capacities.
The government has also instructed the Australian Space Agency (ASA) to develop a plan to put an Australian astronaut into space.
“Any astronaut and any spacecraft has a team of thousands behind them, not to mention invaluable technology and research and carefully manufactured parts,” said the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
“All of that means new technologies that make things simpler and safer, the job opportunities that come from a booming industry or the technology advancements that can be applied in our everyday lives.”
The government says that, since 2018, it has invested more than $800 million into the Australian space sector, with the aim of tripling the size of the sector to $12 billion and leading to20,000 new jobs by 2030.
As part of the $65 million package, the government will co-invest more than $32 million into the development of up to three new or existing spaceports or launch sites across Australia.
The ASA will also receive more than $32 million to procure and provide spaceflights and services for the Australian space sector, such as ‘flight qualification’.
This includes a $3.5-million national student space challenge that would see student payloads sent into orbit.
Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo, said the Fast-Tracking Access to Space package would help address gaps in the local sector.
“By supporting Australian businesses and researchers to get their products into space more quickly, we are helping them to demonstrate their capabilities to the world, which in turn will create new opportunities that see them grow,” Mr Palermo said.
South Australia-based launch start-up, Southern Launch, said it welcomed the announcement.
“I look forward to the not-too-distant future when all Australians can take pride in our national space future,” said the company’s CEO, Lloyd Damp.
The ASA has been tasked to work with international partners to put an Australian astronaut back into space.
There have been three Australian-born people who trained as astronauts, only two of whom made it into orbit.
The first was Philip Chapman, an aerospace engineer who, after taking out US citizenship, was selected by NASA in 1967. Chapman trained as a lunar module pilot and could possibly have been chosen as a crewmember of an Apollo lunar landing flight had the last three Apollo missions not been cancelled. Like many other astronauts, Chapman resigned from NASA in 1972, disillusioned about the direction of the US space program. He died in April 2021.
The first Australian-born person to fly in space is Paul Scully-Power, an oceanographer who had served in the Royal Australian Navy and US Navy. He worked on several space projects in the USA in the 1970s and became a US citizen in 1982. Scully-Power was chosen to fly aboard the STS-41-G space shuttle mission in 1984, after the initial payload specialist had to pull out of the mission at short notice.
The other Australian-born astronaut is Andy Thomas, an aerospace engineer who took out US citizenship in 1986 with the aim of joining the NASA astronaut corps, for which he was indeed selected in 1992. Thomas made four spaceflights, including spending almost five months aboard the Soviet space station Mir.
In the late 1970s, when the first space shuttle flights were not too far away, NASA invited Australia to select and supply an Australian citizen to join its astronaut corps. The only catch was that Australia would have to pay for that person’s training. The federal government considered it but ultimately declined the offer.
Stay up to date by getting stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Sign up to receive our free weekly Spatial Source newsletter.
