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https://theconversation.com/australia-wants-a-space-industry-so-why-wont-we-pay-for-the-basic-research-to-drive-it-178878>
"In the past few years, Australia has formed its own space agency and launched
a defence “space command”. Billions of dollars for defence, and hundreds of
millions for civilian space, have been allocated from the public purse to
develop capability in this growing sector.
This funding covers the Moon-to-Mars Program, the SmartSat Cooperative Research
Centre, the Modern Manufacturing Initiative, opportunities in defence, various
state-funded projects such as SA-SAT, and more.
This level of investment is unquestionably a good thing. But the great majority
of it supports applied research and engineering, and commercialisation of
outcomes. None of the new funding goes to basic research.
In the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, India,
South Korea, China, Russia, and United Arab Emirates – to name a few – basic
research in space and planetary science, and science missions, are key elements
in strategies to grow their sectors. In Australia, this kind of fundamental
work only gets around A$2 million a year. It hasn’t budged in a decade."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
