Our government is debating right now how to allocate 20 bln dollars on submarines. Build here in Australia or in Japan.
I am saying. Scrap submarines and lets build space vehicles shipyards and launching pad , cosmo-port instead.

Elon Musk - American /South African born entrepreneur - that have the most promising space program at that moment in the whole world works on the budget 1.5 billion dollars to supply International Space Station.

For this money, he is able to employ the best engineering brains and technicians , leaving jobs at NASA and build from scratch complete space launch facilities ( beside thousand other things he is doing simultaneously beside manufacturing electric Tesla Cars. Vacuum Trains, the biggest in whole world solar panel manufacturing plants and Lithium battery for his electric cars.

Lets ask Mr Abbot to invite Mr Musk for a dinner in Sydney to talk about future business we could do together. Australia and private space enterprise.

Lets build for this 20 billion dollars space launching sites and manufacturing hangars in Darwin or SA, far North Queensland maybe ? From defensive point of view capable space manufacturing industry much exceed capability of 20 miserable submarines to be sunk in first 5 minutes of any conflict.

Amount of high quality work , jobs in growing space industry is enormous. Impulse to our universities can not be overestimated.

If each of our multi billioner comes with next 1 to 5 billion investment in shares into our space port industry, plus government grants, money will not be any problem. Since few years from now we could be exporting the same iron not only to China but directly into Earth orbit and space above.

It is not accidental that Australia has the best geographical and topographical conditions in whole world for this new window into cosmos, into our future.

We can't even rely on the government to build schools and other infrastructure and you want to trust them with rockets?

It also doesn't help that a lot of satellites are launched into an equatorial geostationary orbit, that means best practice and economies is a launch from as close to the equator as possible.

Think a moment about that :

What ether your job is now it is still applicable for Australian Space Agency ( in short ASA) .
You could be lawn moving green grass around launch pad,
firefighter could ride a fire truck during takes off
plumber, electrician could fit out next space shuttle and land base building facilities
accountant - count all the enormous money turned every day and churn in this bumming now industry
Painters -spray our national colors and drawing kangaroo on every space rocket leaving Darwin Space Port
every engineer now will be chased and paid astronomical wages,
policeman - don't need to undergo virginity tests everyday to remain in force, just opposite will be encouraged to befriend and comforts this flock of scientists and tourist coming from all over the world
Cook and master chef - grill fresh sausages to be delivered to hungry International Space station astronauts,
drivers and trackers - will take new courses to learn driving Moon and Mars buggy
Miners will dig even bigger pits on the Mars surface, Gold miners will be just chasing and catch on harpoon asteroids made of pure gold,...
politician will be busy accepting overseas reporters briefing to explain to them how Australian miracle could happen, and why. same thing thousand time s....

our Abbot could now send 10 satellites, filled with dynamite hanging over each of the war cruise ships Putin could send us for the next APEC visit..

Nobody say that Australia is at the end of the world anymore , but where world begin and new window to even newer worlds wide open !

You'll probably find the yanks have already got one in one of their bases somewhere in Australia.

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Chris6791 said..
We can't even rely on the government to build schools and other infrastructure and you want to trust them with rockets?

It also doesn't help that a lot of satellites are launched into an equatorial geostationary orbit, that means best practice and economies is a launch from as close to the equator as possible.

That why we are not going to do everything by them self. We need to pickup Elon skills and overseas engineering space designs to start with.
We could not make that mistake NK is doing to invent everything from the beginning. It is costly and risky to develop whole space industry.
That is why we should invite American, Chinese even Russian rocket specialist , even give them work visas
Beside there is no point to build complete rocket from scratch here , rather bring parts , assemble . Build in Australia infrastructure around this new space business.Price of sending 1 kg into space is dropping rapidly. This is actually good news because instead of rare and expensive becomes now bigger volume and wide spread demand. Just please forget about space tourism industry - which is crazy maniac idea at this stage of development.

Actually world is lacking space to build descent port station and there is our advantage. Russians build their space port in Kazakhstan that was part of their territory - now almost another rogue country , gifted for free this wonderful facility.China needs to launch rockets over Japan - and that will be always ignition point.

Amarica has two - one in Florida another in California - and both seems to be now wrong- that why they need new one in the middle between this two in Texas now ?!!European Space agency invest into tropical , underdeveloped countries where is not political stability or basic safety for personnel - so maybe considering launching from ship /platforms now. But how much you could build on the water and around and how much it cost ?

That is our Australian chance to provide safe, organized , highly skilled enviroment, excellent geographical location, plenty of space/room to grow. Imagine poor Russians now forced to assemble rockets in freezing cold Siberia, in below 40 degree frost , where where strongest iron and titanium is cracking from the frost and hydrogen fuel freezing in the pipes ? That is where their new space port to be located ...
South and Central Americas may look greedily to capture a piece of space cake but they have too much political , social and economic problems to be considered seriously....

True, secondary employment would be great, especially during the construction phase, but you are still talking about starting a rocket industry from scratch, from a greenfields site as far north in Australia as possible. If NASA with nearly 60 years under their belt and the US govt are scaling down their space program and outsourcing it to private organisations like SpaceX how could a start-up govt program from Oz compete? Arguably SpaceX haven't started from scratch either, they are probably using existing launch sites and infrastructure and poached the best rocket engineers from NASA.

Ship based launches are already being done en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey(launch_platform)

As for politicians : I am sure if Obama six years ago decide as planed and promised to accelerate space exploration, instead of wasting money and energy on social programs (Obamacare , immigration act) and constant wars with everybody else
we could be walking and living on the Moon by now !!!

He could walk into history in glory as a first president in human history the colonized extra terrestrial world !!

That was his chance to be this only one man in whole human history that could achieve that goal - and he wasted it !!

He was so close to achieve that as all technology to reach the Moon is know already for 50 years, money spent on Iraqis, Afghanistan and Syrian war far exceed requirements to build shelter for thousand of people under Moon surface.

He could claim next 50 or filthy filth American state on the Moon or other planet and he just wasted all this....unbelievable ...

Amount of people / voulnteer willing to risk their life in the unsure journey to the Moon and Mars is much greater that amount of souls lost in the recent war conflicts .

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Chris6791 said..
Ship based launches are already being done en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey(launch_platform)

Do you realize what happen when rocket launch goes wrong ?

Big bang, boom and whole platform that you invested money sink like Titanic and another unsinkable Bismarck.

All your money you invested gurgled down , people on board , quite hard to replace.


Beside last thing any astronaut may wish for is constant sea sickness when even on the ground.

Think about that scenario : One technician to another on that coroua floating platform would say every day ? Dash I forgot or need new screwdriver or stainless steel bolt . No problem. We send helicopter to France to get new one for you and maybe box of washers just in case.
I guess sending every kilo of materials to this floating platform cost already more then sending then it into space ......

^^ Cargo/satellite launches only at this stage, plus they've already have rocket failures on launch, launch platform was patched up no worries And they evacuate the platform prior to every launch.

No idea why that link didnt work properly, try this one. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch

Astronauts will only go a little bit into space. Cosmonauts will go into the cosmos. Employ only cosmonauts please. No communists

Macro, This is very visionary, but I just can't see this ever happening in our country unless our current industrial redtape is drastically diminished. I'm fixing somebodies $1000 vacuum cleaner at the moment. A Swedish brand. The going price for a Yum-Cha jobbie is between $80 to $300 I think, but I reckon Australian startup could produce one for about $20k a piece if all the rules were followed like engineering compliance, WHS, insurances, product underwriting, staff licensing.

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jn1 said..
Macro, This is very visionary, but I just can't see this ever happening in our country unless our current industrial redtape is drastically diminished. I'm fixing somebodies $1000 vacuum cleaner at the moment. A Swedish brand. The going price for a Yum-Cha jobbie is between $80 to $300 I think, but I reckon Australian startup could produce one for about $20k a piece if all the rules were followed like engineering compliance, WHS, insurances, product underwriting, staff licensing.

This is very true. But a the same time this compliance depend where our government smell the money.
If that is ripping the earth and mining ore and coal nothing could stop them and red tape is no existent. You may have more difficulty to cut a tree on your block, or put a shed then setup next million acres mine that level and destroy everything behind horizons. We do create Martian landscape already here at tremendous pace.

|If there are money to be earn on space business, part will go to government coffers , some to big investors, we may have some good paid jobs and pride.

If we could capture next asteroid made of pure gold or platinum ad land it in the middle or Alice Springs there will enough for everybody.

Similarly with space ports. There will not be so many build around the world and the cheapest with best service wins. We are quite good in cutting corners
when comes to big projects and our ore is still the cheapest in the world.

It it comes to voting in our Parliament
- labor will vote for : because of good jobs, pride, extending science
-right wing - also for because they will cook good business deals with capital overseas and sponsors here ( Gina will be first to secure substantial controlling packet in space enterprise , others will follow

_ Green Party - they always had weakness to Green of course Aliens this time.

BTW we are not going to do any new charity here in Australia, We just suck the money from the rest of the world on the cosmic scale !

Australia could have a space industry at little to no cost to the tax payer. Offer space entrepreneurs a one hundred year lease on a piece of otherwise useless land in northern Australia around one hundred square kms in size. Advise the terms of the lease is they use it primarily to develop space transportation. In return they are free to do as they like, without being subject to the laws of Australia. They are expected to maintain law and order and a term of the lease if they cannot, ie violence in the area spills over to the outside the police can move in and arrest perpetrators and the lease will be cancelled if the lessor was found to be negligent in maintaining law and order.

The time of government backed space programs is coming to a close. The future lies with private ventures who will seek to profit from the exploitation of space. The profits will be huge, the technology is there. It will happen.

Macro

Some interesting viewing. The British Black Arrow Rocket. It was the cheapest launch platform of the time. Developed on a shoe string budget, and abandoned after the first orbit insertion. If you ever pass by Woomera, one of the unused launchers is in the museum.



(Part 1 of 3 movies)

J

maybe we could import them from china we got a trade DEAL ya know