Christopher Pyne speaks with astronaut and Deputy Administrator of NASA, Pam Melroy, about Australia’s nascent space industry.
Space is the new frontier. It’s a hackneyed saying but it’s true!
Everyone apparently knows something about space because they have watched Star Wars, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica (that’s showing my age). But my guest on Global Focus on Sky News this week actually does know something about space. In fact, a whole lot.
Pam Melroy has spent thirty eight days in space, been on three space missions and commanded one. She is an astronaut and is now Deputy Administrator of NASA which runs the United States’ space programme.
She has a close connection to Australia having lived and worked in Adelaide in 2018 with Nova Systems, one of Australia’s defence and space industry powerhouses.
She advised the Australian Government on the establishment of the Australian Space Agency.
Her insights about the universe are breathtaking.
Space is the one unquestionably international industry. It isn’t possible for one nation to know everything there is to know about how to create and maintain a space programme. For that reason, it is a unique area for international collaboration.
The International Space Station is a case in point. It involves five space agencies and twelve nations working together to create and maintain its existence and its programme.
For example, Melroy says about Russia: “the relationship with Russia in the International Space Station has been pivotal to our success and is as strong as it has ever been.”
Many people had hoped that Antarctica would be a model of international cooperation and by and large that has been true so far.
However, new discoveries of minerals and the opportunity presented for national interests to be put ahead of international ones is straining the rules that govern the scientific and other uses for Antarctica.
But it may prove a lesson for how nations cooperate in space. Australia is one of the early signatories to the Artemis Accords, which is the first attempt to regulate behaviours towards each other in space.
The need for cooperation is essential for the nascent Australian space industry to thrive.
While there is now an Australian Space Agency, a Discovery Centre and Mission Control at Lot 14, seventy companies in just Adelaide in the space industry, with many more in Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and beyond, the relationship between the US and Australia as partners in space is going to be critical to successfully creating a sovereign space sector here.
Melroy thinks we need to specialise in a few significant areas. She cites the Italians focusing on pressure vessels for spacecraft as an example of how to add value to the space sector.
The US wants to help us as, “strong partners are the best ones”. She’s right.
On Global Focus, Melroy also explains the pillars that make…
Read More: International cooperation ‘essential’ for Australian space industry to