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Space

Australia Develops Space Program With Russia 124

Posted by timothy from the that's-not-a-samovar dept.
Chuq writes: "ABC News has details of a joint space effort between Australia and Russia. Australia will be providing launch locations on the Christmas Islands and Woomera (central Australia) and Russia will be providing.. well, experience! As I'm an Aussie I'm glad to see us finally making our first move into the space arena, no matter how small!" Imagine this happening even, oh, 10 years ago.
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Australia Develops Space Program With Russia More

Australia Develops Space Program With Russia

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  • Been There Done That! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Australia (along with the british) was a leader in space in the early 60's and was the 3'rd nation to launch a satellite into orbit after the USSR & USA. But as the brits later decided that they no longer needed a ballistic capability they folded the project and sold it to the french. I believe it called ARIANE now!! DOH!

  • Christmas Islands (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:22AM (#203822)
    Maybe one of their giant rockets will explode and take out the Christmas Islands. Hurrah! No more goatse.cx!
  • Actually the Ariane launches from CSG (Centre Spatial Guyanais) Kourou, French Guiana. That's on the north coast of South America.
  • I know this is off topic but I'd like to point some things out about how El Presidante "handled China".

    First off, the recent fun with China happened because an American recon aircraft in International Airspace was intercepted by a reckless pilot and hit. Then as the aircraft radioed for emergency landing clearance, in accordance with numerous air transport treaties that the PRC and the USA have signed, the clearance was denied and then the crew was held.

    Look here on Janes for some background
    http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces/news/mis c/ ep3_010518_1_n.shtml

    Secondly - The PRC holds that everything in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, which are closer to the Philippines. They also occupy the Paracel Islands which has been part of Vietnam since the early 1900s, and invaded Vietnam early in 1980, Afghanistan style...only to be beat back. So in short, the PRC is attempting Pacific expansion in the same way Japan did in the 1930s and early 40s. Taiwan is threatened with hundreds of short-range missiles, and the United States, and Europe if they took Taiwan's side are threatened with atomic weapons by China.

    Lastly - The PRC is responsable for wildly violent outbursts against pro-Democracy, Islamic, Tibetian, or other religous groups that make Waco or even Kosovo and the airwar against Serbia look like picnics.

    Bush...much as I dislike him, did a very good job with China, giving in to the demands of expansionist nations will never work, the world learned that after Chamberlin's 'Peace in our Time' speech.

    That's me, being off topic.

    On topic, I think the U.S. should set up a launching facility on the Atlantic Coast of Brazil, where we still have 40 some years on a WW2 lease...at...Natal I think it is. Where the planes in the 40s and 50s jumped from S.A to North Africa. So we'd be closer to the Equator. Maybe it'll happen after the FTAA happens.
  • The biggest construction project ever was the US Interstate highway system.

    As for importance, the Great Wall of China didn't really do much to stem the tide of the northern hordes it was to stop.
  • him grabbing snakes and alligators in zero-gravity would be cool as hell. Something like "The Matrix meets The Crocidile Hunter" ;-)
  • (actually, it's exactly what I meant to say. (a) it was funnier; (b) it may have had use to dodge flak; (c) if I were truly poorly misinformed, I'd have figured it destroyed crippled lesbian libertarian spotted owls...)

    --

  • Goodbye Ozone (Score:4)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @07:10AM (#203828) Homepage
    Perhaps I've been poorly misinformed, but don't rocket launches release a shitload of ozone-depleting chemicals?

    Australia already has a lotta trouble with skin cancer. Can't imagine launching rockets right into the ozone hole is gonna help 'em any...

    --
  • As far as I know Australia was potentially a big competitor in the space race before anyone got into space. But like so many Australian projects, our bone head government didn't see a future in it and pulled the plug.

    Oh well.. like our first prime minister, I guess hardly anyone remembers now! (until those damn federation ads!)
  • Well you learn something everyday... I always knew of it as the Christmas Islands... and most of slashdot would only know it as .cx :)
  • Since it seems that whenever anything falls out of the sky, they always aim it at Australia.
  • The big question is how close are the new Australian launch sites are to the Equator?

    If they're pretty close the same rocket used on the Sea Launch system can be used for these Australian sites.

    The biggest advantage in regards to Sea Launch is the fact they can be literally at the Equator, which means maximum assistance of the Earth's rotation. That's why a satellite that would have required a bigger rocket such as the Atlas III when launched from Cape Canaveral only needs the smaller Russian Zenit rocket when launched from the Sea Launch platform.
  • As an aside to Voyage, Stephen Baxter collaborated with UK space engineer Simon Bradshaw on a short story about an Anglo-Australian manned launch from Woomera.

    http://www.cix.co.uk/~sjbradshaw/baxterium/prosp er o.html

    S.
  • Christmas Island: 10 30' South
    Woomera: 31.10 S

    Cape Canaveral: (drumroll) 28.45 N.

    Florida is about as far north as the center of Australia is south.

    ... and if a rocket crashes in the center of Autralia, does it make a sound?
    • ...the Christmas Islands...

    Are you really an Aussie? An Australian would know it is just Christmas Island [christmas.net.au].

  • "Perhaps I've been poorly misinformed, but don't rocket launches release a shitload of ozone-depleting chemicals?"

    Depends on the rocket in question. If, like the space shuttle, they use liquid oxygen and hydrogen for their main thrusters, no, that's not a problem. Unless you hate water.

    If they use methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen, that's still not a problem, since that (like all hydrocarbon combustion reactions) just produces CO2, CO, and water--none of which are actually "ozone-depleting chemicals."

    If they use solid rocket boosters, that might be a problem, but I'm pretty sure that none of the Russian heavy-lifters use solid rockets, and of the liquid fuels liquid oxygen/hydrogen and liquid oxygen/methane are the most common.

    (oh, and 'poorly misinformed' is a bit of a, well, it's probably not what you meant to say, I'll leave it at that :)
  • Australia had a beaut shoestring space program, oohh, 20 years ago. We even launched a satellite from Woomera that was the model of robustness and longetivity (except perhaps voyager?). Anyway, the powers that be decided sheep were more important and profitable than technology and shut it down. And nothing's changed since...
  • (actually, the FIRST moon landing. By #2, I think everyone was already jaded).

    Quite right....actually there *were* no real-time video pix from the moon on mission #2 because they got there and found out that their camera was borked. Too bad too, because they landed near an old robot probe and visited it during their stay on the lunar surface. By #3 (the infamous Apollo 13) people were definately jaded - there were interviews with the astronauts that were never aired due to lack of interest. Until the accident, of course.
  • At least there's already a landing zone prepared in Quasi [adcritic.com].

    (The above link requires Quicktime 5, available only for some MS and Mac OSes. It is a reference to a humorous Yahoo! commercial about a spacecraft crashing in an almost-uninhabited part of Australia.)

  • I don't think I'd call the situation is Russia a recession (which would imply a cylic retreat) - it's more just economic turmoil from the transition to a market economy. There's just so much economic infrastructure that needs to be built, as well as the current general lawlessness that makes doing legitimate business there pretty hard.
  • Yep. That's why Ariane, which mostly is putting up comms. satellites, launch from Africa.
  • IIRC, equatorial launch sites are good if you are after, for example, a geostationary orbit, since, as you say, you get the push from the centrifugal force. However, if you want a LEO polar orbit, for example, the push of an equatorial launch site is probably a bad thing, whereas a site like Woomera is just the trick.
  • then this [fosters.com.au] must be a completely different company entirely
  • Also dont forget that in reality, Fosters is simply one of the brands of CUB. They just happen to keep all the good stuff for the local market (VB, Crown, Cascade etc)

    I work not too far away from FBG HQ in Southbank, and have actually done work for them in the past. FBG is more than just beer (CUB). They also own Mildara-Blass, Continental Spirits, a whole heap of hotels (and pokies - they are the largest operator of poker machines in Victoria, taking all of their hotels together), as well as running a Wine Club division, amongst other things.
  • Wow, not the only one. I still have a bit that my uncle gave me.

  • Re:Not our first move (Score:3)

    by sien ( 35268 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @05:00AM (#203847) Homepage
    Actually, ESA wanted to use Northern Australia as a launch facility instead of French Guinea or whatever. But in it's infinite wisdom and world wiseness the Australian tax department wanted to tax everything that they would bring into the country.

    But don't worry, although we pissed the Europeans off and instead of Australia being the major European launch facility we did invite the Brits to come and detonate nuclear weapons slightly upwind from Adelaide.....
  • is that Paul Hogan be launched as Australia's first satellite! And maybe The Crocodile Hunter too.
  • Most countries in the world (including the US) have some form of VAT - either at a state level (ie the US) or at a federal level. Taking a wide survey will find that a country's economy dies after GST only if a recession hits at the same time, or other external factors come into play.

    Bankruptcy being up 36% this year is a pretty common figure all over the world. Perhaps you haven't noticed the layoffs in San Jose and hiring freezes in just about every US company?

    The biggest reason the Australian dollar has dropped (and the bankruptcies) is not the GST but the mismanagement of the economy by the Reserve Bank. Interest rates never should have been pushed as high as they were and now people are going broke as they can't afford to repay the loans. The effect of GST compared to this was negligible.

    Howard should indeed be running scared though - Labor is gonna put up one hell of a FUD campaign (as usual) and probably win with no real future vision or policies (again).
  • The AU$ was propped up to keep the olympic real estate disaster from destroying the real estate market. When 95% of new properties are overvalued by 200% and owned by overseas investors, something had to give.
  • Some problems will have to be solved and this is in line with other research done in Australia. A different problem was discussed before on slasdot [slashdot.org] involving why bubbles appear to flow down in Guinness [fluent.com]. This type of research is right in line with Aussie science.
  • you mean "fosters: Canadian for beer!".

    Aussies don't drink fosters. You can't get fosters oil cans in Australia and the stuff sold as Fosters in the US was imported from Canada.

    Fosters is an American company that was kicked out of the US durring proabition and went to Melbourne. Once the law was overturned, they moved to Canada.
  • damn I hate when people disprove my point...

    The Fosters brothers moved in the 1888 not the 1920s however it still might have been because of prohibition in their home county... it wasn't due to the nation wide prohibition like I had thought.

    A few links:
    http://www.australianbeers.com/history/history4. ht m
    One titled:
    Fosters - It's Australian for beer, mate! Or is it?
    http://www.australianbeers.com/beers/fosters/fos te rs.htm

    All I know is most pubs around here don't sell much fosters and I'm within walking distance of Collingwood where Fosters started. That area is now known for smack, brothels, gay bars and over priced yuppy warehouse conversion flats.
  • Well, we (the POMS) were involved as well (assuming you mean black arrow) although from the few pictures [aol.com] available it all looked distinctly like Gerry Anderson was in charge.
  • You mean "the whipping boy of other third-world nations with poor human rights records," right?

    How the hell is this insightful? Flamebait if I ever saw one.
  • Kinda like a toilet bowl?



    I corresponded (by email) with someone in Melbourne once to test the assertion that water goes down the drain differently in the southern hemisphere. The result was simply that it did not. I got different swirling patterns just going around to different drains in my house, and so did my cohort in Australia. The coriolis force might affect hurricanes, but nothing as small as a sink or toilet drain.

  • A few weeks ago, NPR [npr.org] had an show on the sad state of the space program. Among the speakers was very cool astronaut Story Musgrave [nasa.gov], who pointed out that the shuttle, even though it has flaws, went from design to deployment faster & more cheaply than anything NASA is doing today. In the time the recently axed successor to the shuttle was in devlopment, it cost far more & achieved far less than the shuttle developers had done in the 70s. And the shuttle itself is no pinnacle of success either -- apparently the entire Apollo program was cheaper (not to mention far more ambitious) than a few shuttle launches.

    NASA is in a sorry state right now. The space station is a lousy way to get out of the stagnation that we've been locked in ever since the shuttle program got underway. More competition from a Russian/Australian alliance (as well as from China et al) could be a very good thing, both for NASA and for global space exploration in general.

    I'm for anything that would get us off our asses and have us out doing something interesting, like exploring Mars, rather than putting Yet Another Damn Tin-can in orbit. Someone at NASA has a huge David Bowie fixation, methinks....

  • For the record, Australian toilet bowls work on a slightly different mechanism. Our water doesn't swirl, it goes straight down.

    Just FYI.

  • You're probably just close enough that there is no visible swirl.

    Melbourne (where I live) is pretty much on the same latitude as Chicago, only the opposite hemisphere. While I've never been to Chicago, I have been to California, which is closer to the equator, and the toilets swirl there.

    American swirling toilets, as someone else has pointed out, work using a jet of water just under the rim which is directed at an angle, so that the water swirls. In most Australian toilets, on the other hand, a large volume of water is ejected from the cistern from under the rim and it goes straight down. There's a lot of splashing, and more noise, and no swirling.

    It may also use more water. Thankfully, a lot of Australian toilets have a "half flush" feature where only half the volume of water is thrown into the bowl. However, it uses a clever mechanism so that the height of the water in the cistern, and therefore the pressure under which the water comes out, is the same as for a full flush.

    Now aren't you glad you asked?

  • Well, it came out on the news tonight (Sydney), and no big fuss was made. I doubt they intend to move the russian space program to Australia.

    A couple of things intrigue me however. How would this affect relations with the US? Does it? Even a little? What given the cold war/space race between the US and Russia, is the US relaxed and encouraging this link to help get the International Space Station into space, or are there any concerns.

    One tends to speculate that the push to get into space is now a bit of an open source project, governments realising the cash its going to cost to get it up there.

    The other is what commercial cost would this have for Au. Obviously the US has stacks more cash that Australia, but is the Space Program profitable? Would we be playing with a black hole, that sucked a bit too much cash before we realised it had an impact on the economy. One assumes Russia gives us the staff, we pay for the rockets.
  • Ah, those were the days. When we were a nation that actually did something rather than reflect on past glories. Thanks for setting me straight, I thought the U.S. was still heavily (leadingly?) involved in the building of the space station, not to mention the enormously scientifically important Hubble. I think no one notices any more because those things, while amazingly dificult to do and important, are not as TV-friendly as was the moon landings (actually, the FIRST moon landing. By #2, I think everyone was already jaded).
    ---
  • For the most part. Where you want to launch from depends on what type of orbit you would like to wind up in. If, for example, you would like to launch a communications or weather satellite into geosynch (parks it over some place on the earth), then by launching close to the equator, you don't have to use up fuel getting from some N/S lat to the equatorial plane (letting you use more of the payload for insturments rather than fuel). This is the motivation behind sea-launch [sea-launch.com], where a big platform is lugged into the middle of the ocean and a rocket is launched from it. Since a geosynchronous orbit is one of the most popular and valuable, this is why there is so much of an interest in launch areas close to the equator. (However for other types of orbits, Siberia would work quite nicely).
  • No government decisions are made in a vacuum with respect to politics...

    Is this a true interest in science by John Howard's gov't (which has spent too much time cutting back science spending) or an attempt to raise the Liberal party's dwindling popularity to Labour? I don't see OZ coming up with the bucks on a sustained basis. The GST has had a misearble effect on the aussie dollar (nearly 2:1 to the US buck) so effectively, it will be MORE expensive than in a dollar with a strong currency, to undertake this boondoggle.

    The culture of Russian science, at least from what I've experienced first hand, has little respect for "details" and a lot to do with making data fit theories.

    Anyway, my vote would be to send Steve "croc hunter" Irwin. But I bet it'll be Murdoch instead. :-)

  • I remember wandering around the playground in primary school looking for pieces of it......

    Buckets,

    pompomtom
  • Being the primary builder and organizer of the International Space Station, possibly the largest construction project ever,

    I think the Great Wall of China was the largest construction project ever. Certainly bigger than the space station, in both size and importance.

  • just to fill you in on some background information about the australian territory of christmas island (i lived there for two years as a child in the late 70s)

    first : christmas islands only makes sense if you are referring to the two christmas islands on the planet - which belong to two different nation states and are located in two different oceans - the one belonging to australia is in the indian ocean, the other one (belonging to the us i think?) is in the pacific ocean - they are often confused - the pacific ocean one was the site of some nuclear testing at one stage

    location of australian christmas island - basically about 300 km due south of the indonesian island of java (no bad java jokes please) - roughly about 10 degrees south of the equator (or the same lattitude as the most northern tip of australia at cape york several thousand km to the east) - longitude i can't recall but it is west of all the australian landmass

    population peaked at about 2000 people during the glory days of phosphate mining (see below) - now about 500 i think

    it is a small and quite isolated island - most interestingly it is one of the few inhabitable places on the earth that never had an indigenous human population - with the result that it has a remarkably unique fauna and flora - many endemic species - there were no mammals native to the island and the floor of the jungle forest is kept remarkably clean by thousand of scavenging land crabs

    it has been a haven for bird life over many thousands of years and the result of this is a huge amount of fossilised bird shit which was for many years the one economic resource of the island - mining for phosphate - a valuable agricultural fertiliser

    however the island was mostly mined out by the mid-eighties and the australian government has been looking for other things to do with the island - the woefully unimaginative idea they came up with first was to sell a casino license for the island (why, oh why not ecotourism??) - the casino was subsequently built and the plan was to attract 'high rollers' from indonesia - but i think it failed some years back

    a large part of the island is protected as a national park - it might even be listed as world heritage i'm not sure - so if they go ahead building a space port (prob on some of the mined out moonlandscape-like part of the island) - they will need to be very careful with the development so as to cause minimal disruption of the remaining mostly untouched highly unique natural environment - but i would be somewhat optimistic this could be achieved

    (sorry if this is somewhat rushed and contains no links - suffering from the slashdot imperative to post before the story loses focus)

  • ... of the consortium behind the development of a rocket launching facility on .cx

    from the site [apsc2orbit.com]

    Aurora Launch System Summary [apsc2orbit.com]

    The AURORA launch system is offered by Asia Pacific Space Centre (APSC) to commercial users worldwide. AURORA is a Russian designed and manufactured system that will be launched from the APSC spaceport on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

    Typical Flight Paths [apsc2orbit.com]

    With launch from Christmas Island, several flight corridors for AURORA have been identified illustrating the safe nature of the overflight paths and hardware jettison drop zones.

  • how many scientists would want to go and work on a tropical island in the south pacific?

    I can think of quite a lot of people who say they would not mind moving to such an island, if only they could. Then again, few of them dream of working once there...
  • That's not a result of the mechanism (unless you have a motorized pump toilet); that's probably a result of the fact that you're very close the equator. Directly on the equator, there is no swirl. The swirl gets more pronounced the further away you go. You're probably just close enough that there is no visible swirl.
  • They'd just need to let go and drop off the bottom of the Earth. Genius!
  • 1)Someone will have tried to start an argument with the Germans.
    2)Someone will have vomited something even more unpleasant than normal vomit. And possibly tried to drink it again.
    3)All Brits will be horribly sunburnt.

    And before you all start criticising me for xenophobia; I'm British, and I've seen the above done far too many times on holiday.

    Also, thank God for dictionary.com [dictionary.com] for help with spelling xenophobia!

  • anyone who can explain why canada is special member of european space agency ? wouldnt it be much more logical to 1) start own agency 2) join with usa into some kind of north american space agency (nasa :)


    list of esa member states [esa.int]
  • Bruce: Gents, I'd like you all to meet Ivan, Igor, Greggor, and Uri.

    Uri: Hello.

    Bruce: Golly... Mind if we all just call you Bruce to avoid confusion?

    Bruce: Good suggestion, Bruce. Here, Bruce, have a cold one.

    Ivan: No! Vit zero gravity openink can of beer vill...

    Bruce: *opens can* !!FOOOOSH!!!


  • Bah, you've probably been drinkin XXXX or VB or some crap. Get some real aussie beer [coopers.com.au] into you. You can eat Coopers Stout with a fork.
  • Woomera was the site of the UK's rocket program when we had one, years ago. Search for Black Knight or Black Arrow on the web, you'll throw up some details. I believe the (crumbling) launch site etc. is still there.

    Blane.
  • The US has gone from being the most respected country in the world to being the whipping boy of third-world nations with poor human rights records

    You mean "the whipping boy of other third-world nations with poor human rights records," right?

  • And of course the Irish don't pass out at all. In fact my better half is half Scottish and half Irish, which is very scary

  • Look at the similarities between Mars and Middle Austrailia....
  • It turns out Coriolis effects do come into play when firing missles

    Actually, Coriolis was a French mathematician who 'discovered' the curved paths of artillery shells (I believe). He made this discovery in the 19th century.

    When travelling north and south, things (artillery rounds, winds, whatever) dont really turn. They maintain their path and the earth moves below them.

    For instance, let's assume a round is fired in the northern hemisphere (let's say New York City) and it is heading due south (geographic, not magnetic). Let's assume that it maintains a constant distance between it and the surface of the earth (so we need to disregard surface topology).

    The surface of the earth near the equator has a higher velocity than the surface near New York (just like the wheels on a car travel at different rates when turning - the outside wheels turn fater than the inside wheels).

    The east/west velocity of the round is zero relative to its point of origin, meaning it has the same east/west velocity as its point of origin. The east/west velocity of the surface near the equator is much higher, so it appears that the round turns to the right since the surface is rotating faster below it to toward the east than it did in New York, but it's actually travelling in a straight line.

    As it crosses the equator into the southern hemisphere, the reverse is true and it will appear to turn to the left.

    Man, I hope that makes sense to you since I'm off topic from the original post.

    I suffer from apathy, but I just don't care.
  • It means bigger payloads as less fuel will be needed. That's all this is about.
  • Shooting satellites into space isnt exactly cutting edge anymore. It's been done for 40+ years now. It's like saying Mexico is a hotbed of the auto industry because they built a few VW Beetles.

    When China or Russia or India drop a pod on Mars -then- they can claim to be a part of the space race. When someone other than NASA launches long range exploration probes, then they can step up and claim to be expanding the bounds of space. Until then, they're just glorified Space UPS trucks.

    D
    Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands

  • Someone's gotta do it. (Score:4)

    by derrickh ( 157646 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:21AM (#203883) Homepage
    This is good. Otherwise we'd only have NASA reaching into space, and let's face it, NASA's been dragging their feet(which have been shackled by congress).

    Maybe this will lead to another space race. I can already picture G.W.Bush saying,'The first man on Mars will be an AMERICAN man, not a kangaroo!'.

    D
    Mad Scientists with too much time on thier hands

  • Which is why I'm wondering how the hell the Russians keep getting in the news for space-related stuff

    Well, maybe that's because in Russia they don't have that much red tape as the americans do. I mean a burocracy like that can't do anything else *but* slow down, doesn't it? And the american congress isn't much of a helping hand either!
  • It was started back in the early 70s at Woomera,
    we had a nice little launch rocket, that
    could carry the payload of one that
    was 50% biger, after a few tests, the amricans
    where invited to see it, it strangly whent BANG

    never built another...

  • The Aussie $ dint fall cause of the gst,
    remebr when you compare the vaule of $A to $US
    it is not only on AUs performance, but the US
    one..
  • I feal for you,
    i realy do...
  • I wonder... does an orbit from a launch in the Southern Hemisphere go in the opposite direcion from an orbit launched in the Northern? Kinda like a toilet bowl?

    Argh! Sounds like a job for www.BadAstronomy.com [badastronomy.com]

  • Well, maybe that is exactly what it would take.

    We (Americans, or more accurately the government, congress, funding priorities, et al) usually can't get our collective 'will' directed until there is a threat. I would bet that if there was another nation that announced, heck even looked like they might get off the dime and get a man to Mars, it would suddenly become a priority...

  • Funnily enough, they actually did an advert for Australian-Rules Football a couple of years ago from Mia. They only had a few minutes each day to shoot about tens seconds of one of the cosmonaughts saying "......, I'd like to see that!" It took several days apparently but they got payed a lot for it.

  • There was a similar idea ten years ago... (Score:3)

    by maaaaanis ( 180232 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @06:26AM (#203891)
    There was talk of a space "port" being setup in FNQ, Cape York, ten years ago with help from both the russians and nasa, the idea just seemed to fizzle out though.
    From what I can remember, Cape York was favourable due to it's proximity to the equator, more centrifical force, thus making it a more ecconomical place to launch large payloads. Australia is also probably the most politically stable country this close to the equator as well and the weather at Cape York is very predictable between April and November, it just doesn't rain.

    I don't know why they'd bother trying to setup a space station on xmas island, the extra costs of getting the stuff there would be more prohibitive than Cape York, ie, you can just truck the stuff to the cape (if they build a road, it's just a sandy track) and how many rocket scientists would want to go and work on a tropical island in the south pacific?

    The woomera rocket range is much further south, no real advantage other than it's and old rocket range, nuclear test site and is closer to the major cities. It's also got an abandoned town there, big enough for hundreds of people to live quite comfortably, with shops and a cinema.

    more detailed info on the cape york proposal:
    http://www.gbhap.com/fulltext/free/S960040F793.h tm
  • It is nice to see that Space programs are falling away from being the province of one or two countries. While I would be nervous to some degree about an Iraqi space program (due to the politics of the region), in general I support the idea of more governments and businesses going into space.

    I think that having some sort of active frontier is valuable for the huminity in general, as it is something that we have had for most of our existance as a species on this planet.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • yeh, I can see this.

    what I was looking at was that as more people get access to space, that tensions drop down because of things like verification. You can look and see what the other guy is doing. That being said, certain political institutions small or large, that are hung up on territory issues or have control issues would make anyone nervous.

    I see the opportunity for the globalization of space to slowly deflate these things, although alot has to be sorted out. This may take a while.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • This is good. Otherwise we'd only have NASA reaching into space, and let's face it, NASA's been dragging their feet(which have been shackled by congress).

    What are you talking about? Haven't you heard about all the efforts from Europe (does Ariane ring a bell?), China, India, Israel etc? Russia is also still existing. NASA is by no means alone in the space business... far from it - after all Europe with Ariane has over 50% of the commercial launch market.

    I can't believe you got modded up so far.

  • It turns out Coriolis effects do come into play when firing missles. So there might have to be some sort of adjustment for it. There is a similar bit of math that has to be done when firing a rocket from the middle latitudes (Florida verses Guyana verses Khazakstan).

    Water flowing in a sink is too small to see the effect, and weather patterns are clearly affected by it, so the Coriolis effect coming into play when shooting a several-ton mass a few thousand kilometers is within the bounds of reasonableness.

  • Go Russians (Score:3)

    by jspey ( 183976 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @06:41AM (#203896)
    While this is obviously a significant move for both governments, I am most impressed with the Russian space agency. It looks to me like the Russians realized that their own country wasn't going to be spending a lot of money on launching anything into space, so they decided to shop around and sell themselves. They must have done a good job of it, too, since they convinced Australia to fund them some. It's things like this that make it easy to believe Russia really was a very formidible foe during the cold war.

    Mr. Spey
  • ...thank you.

  • Your right - America is a becoming irrelevant in World Affairs. The problem is that the American Government has very literally sold out to its Native TransNationals.

    Kyoto was scuttled. The farce that is the 'energy crisis' is being sold to hood-wink the public. The 'resurrection' of the cold-war for the purposes of giving gifts to the military-industrial industry... The result of obvious cow-towing to business is really just beginning to show. The media outlets dump propaganda on the people like no tomorrow (and shore up the initiatives mentioned above). The American Public looks really foolish considering the crap they ingest. Look at Bush.. The guy is a literally a moron - and he's your president!

    The rest of the world knows it. They realize that your government is are smiling, palm-pushing shills for your industries - and the AMERICAN PEOPLE let it continue.

    Im sorry - this appears to be flamebait - but if some NON-Americans can please 'back-me-up' here Id appreciate it. This is why NASA is virtually irrelevant - they dont provide profit (directly in very near term(as in 'cash-for-someone-next-quarter-to-raise-stock-pric es-so-the-plutocrats-can-exercise-their-stock-opti ons' kind of 'near term...)).

    BTW, your foreign policy is also tainted by self-interest. This is why America was recently shunned by the UN members... and that IS ALSO obvious to the rest of the world - how Americans can pretend its not the case (or think they are kidding anyone) is beyond me.

  • look out! (Score:3)

    by shokk ( 187512 ) <ernieoporto AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @12:05PM (#203900) Homepage Journal
    Folks, everyone knows the Australians can't go into space. The ship is just going to come flying right back at the thrower after traveling a few yards!
  • I wonder... does an orbit from a launch in the Southern Hemisphere go in the opposite direcion from an orbit launched in the Northern? Kinda like a toilet bowl?

  • nice (Score:3)

    by fons ( 190526 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:15AM (#203902) Homepage
    Nice to see that the experience the Russians have isn't going to waste.

    I've always feared that now Russia is in a big recession a lot of experience might be bought by criminal organisations.

    So obviously Australia is better then that :-)

  • Could these [whatsgoingon.com] possibly pose problems for the program?

  • Backup (Score:2)

    by rxmd ( 205533 )
    your foreign policy is also tainted by self-interest. This is why America was recently shunned by the UN members...

    The fact that the US delegate was ousted from the Human Rights council may have something to do with the fact that under the rule of the current US president as governor in Texas, more death sentences were issued there every year than in Iran. (In Iran officially, that is, of course.) As far as the replacement with countries like Sudan (which has a civil war, is the poorest nation on Earth and has a very poor human rights record either) is probably symbolic, seeing the exposed role that the US have and that the US government every now and then admits to having and enforces; it's probably something like if you insist to behave like the world's police force, better make sure that you're morally qualified to do it...

    The rest of the world knows it. They realize that your government is are smiling, palm-pushing shills for your industries - and the AMERICAN PEOPLE let it continue. Im sorry - this appears to be flamebait - but if some NON-Americans can please 'back-me-up' here Id appreciate it.

    I am rather sure a large percentage of Slashdot readers is not going to like this, but being a non-American, I can only say that this is indeed what an unsettlingly large number of people over here think; I've talked mainly to Germans, some Sudanese, one from England and four from Central Asia, and they'd all agree with you: that the current US government is acting rather imperialistically, mainly in the interest of the US industry and cares for little else.

    Kyoto was scuttled. The farce that is the 'energy crisis' is being sold to hood-wink the public. The 'resurrection' of the cold-war for the purposes of giving gifts to the military-industrial industry... The result of obvious cow-towing to business is really just beginning to show. The media outlets dump propaganda on the people like no tomorrow (and shore up the initiatives mentioned above). The American Public looks really foolish considering the crap they ingest. Look at Bush.. The guy is a literally a moron - and he's your president!

    Outside America, we notice a growing anti-Americanism at the moment which is due, of course, to current US politics. This is not good - in Germany where I come from, much of our current wealth is based on US funding (after the more or less destruction of the country during the war) and US protection during the first decades of the Iron Curtain, and other countries on this planet used to owe the US as well. At the moment, however, there is a growing notion of "It's US, so it's bad, morally insufficient and new-economy-style imperialism". It's probably the US's turn at the moment to convince us that this image is not justified.

    PS: This is probably going to be moderated to flamebait, but that's probably the price of being outspoken in a forum with a large US majority in the readership...

  • for dumping Skylab on them in the 70's.

    I'm one of the few /.'ers that probably remember that.

  • Re:Someone's gotta do it. (Score:3)

    by smaughster ( 227985 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:37AM (#203912)
    Maybe this will lead to another space race. I can already picture G.W.Bush saying,'The first man on Mars will be an AMERICAN man, not a kangaroo!'.

    Considering Bush, he'd say something along the lines of: 'The first man on Mars will be an AMERICAN man, not some aussie elephant!'
  • Better throw another space station on the barby.
  • China will have an increases presence in space, which will most likely trigger more spending in the US, cause you know, the last thing US polititans want is the Chinese showing them how mindlessly stupid they are. They don't need any help doing that.

    Personally I can't wait until the first manned Aussie space flight is handed over to Dallas, and the Dallas controllers all look at eachother with blank stares commenting "Was that english?" You think slang in America is interesting? "I just got rooted" has a whole different meaning down under...
  • Australia became the fourth country to launch a satellite (WRESAT) [powerup.com.au] way back in 1967.
  • In order to optimitize the weight that you can launch with a given rocket, you had to be as close as possible of the equator. Being close to the ocean is a good idea too, just in case your rocket crashes. That's why:
    *Americans launch rockets from Florida.
    *Europeans lauch rockets from French Guyana (almost on the equator).
    *Russians rockets are big, because Baikonour is far away from the Equator.
    *SeaLaunch (launching a russian rocket from a platform rig on the Equator) can launch very big satellites.
    *This Australian project doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
  • I'd say the russians have plenty of room for their space program in Siberia. So why lug all their heavy rockets and stuff over to australian Islands? I'd say the aussies got invited in for the money. Either that, or the russian kosmonauts have to thaw ...

    Ever try to launch a rocket in freezing weather? If I'm not mistaken the cold weather was one of the key factors in causing the o-ring on the Challenger's booster rocket to fail. We all know how that ended.

  • Not our first move (Score:3)

    by DrSpirograph ( 302281 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:21AM (#203925) Homepage
    As I'm an Aussie I'm glad to see us finally making our first move into the space arena

    Actually it's not. As far as I know Australia was potentially a big competitor in the space race before anyone got into space. But like so many Australian projects, our bone head government didn't see a future in it and pulled the plug.
  • The australian space program has a web site here [asri.org.au] that has a blurb about the new contract. Looking through the site's old news and programs, it looks like this new merger with Russia is far from the Australian excursion into space. They've launched several satelites, and done small scale research for quite a while. The new contract will expand their operations significantly however.

  • Re:When the US was a world power (Score:4)

    by mech9t8 ( 310197 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @08:30AM (#203930)
    Which is why I'm wondering how the hell the Russians keep getting in the news for space-related stuff. First Tito, now this? Where the hell was the US? This isn't a criticism of Russia, but considering the funding difficulties they're having at the moment, they're sure as hell going out there and actually doing stuff. We seem to just be sitting on our asses and spending fifty time as much money to do so!

    That's just a bit silly. Tito and this are happening solely because of the money - you think Russia's not making a handsome profit on this deal? Same with Tito... they *needed the money*.

    Why aren't the States getting these? Because the $20 million that Tito paid is a drop in the bucket for NASA. Why is that? Bureaucratic inefficiency? Concern with safety to the point of standstill? Maybe, a bit. But the main reason is our engineers, workers, equipment suppliers, etc. are paid American wages. The Russians are paid in Russian wages, which are orders of magnitude less, when they are paid at all.

    In any case, "sitting on our asses?" Being the primary builder and organizer of the International Space Station, possibly the largest construction project ever, bringing together the US, Canada, ESA, Japan, Brazil, and, yes, Russia and having it (minor issues with Russians aside) actually work? 6-8 shuttle missions a year? That's "sitting on our asses"?

    Is there more we could be doing, space-wise? Yes. Could we be doing what we're doing better? Sure. But you shouldn't deify the Russians just because they're desparate to hawk their wares.

    (Not to desparage the Russian space program, which, for most of its life, probably bested the Americans. But until they get their economy in good shape, launching tourists in 60's era Soyuz vehicles is probably the best they'll be doing for a while...)
    --
    Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

  • When the US was a world power (Score:5)

    by sharkticon ( 312992 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @04:23AM (#203931)

    Ah, those were the days. When we were a nation that actually did something rather than reflect on past glories.

    But well done to Austrailia for moving an important step closer to a true space program, something that any nation that wishes to remain or become an economic player needs. Already the economic impact of space is being felt in the expanding telecommunications industry, and we can only expect this to become more important in the coming decades.

    Which is why I'm wondering how the hell the Russians keep getting in the news for space-related stuff. First Tito, now this? Where the hell was the US? This isn't a criticism of Russia, but considering the funding difficulties they're having at the moment, they're sure as hell going out there and actually doing stuff. We seem to just be sitting on our asses and spending fifty time as much money to do so!

    With the ending of the Cold War it seems that this nation has lost a hell of a lot of gumption and has been content to let things happen without it. The US has gone from being the most respected country in the world to being the whipping boy of third-world nations with poor human rights records, all in the space of a few decades. And what's worse, nobody cares! Read the papers here, and it's all mindless US propaganda aimed at keeping the proletariat happy and patriotic.

    And then there's our illustrious president. I honestly can't decide whether he doesn't care about the rest of the world, or if he's trying to recreate the Cold War, but this time with China. Either way, I feel almost ashamed that there are nations out there moving foward, and that we're not one of them.

  • it all looked distinctly like Gerry Anderson was in charge.

    And what's wrong with that? I don't remember the Thunderbirds ever missing a take-off!
    -----------------

  • Why should it? You launch in the direction of Earth rotation (to save some speed). Looking up from the equator you'll see the rocket turning right, looking down (S) turning left, but still to the east. Pawe Pluta
  • You normally launch with the earth's rotation, reducing the cost per kilo of payload. Siberia may be empty space but it is very far from the equator.

    In any case, Russia has been launching from Kazakhstan and is paying lots for the privilege.

  • According to an article [spaceandtech.com] on the Space and Tech [spaceandtech.com] website, the Avrora launch vehicle is a Russian designed and manufactured rocket capable of delivering satellites to both low earth and geosynchronous transfer orbits. APSC (Asia Pacific Space Centre) plans to use a new spaceport being developed on Christmas Island, an Australian territory located in the northeast India Ocean.
    No technology or license on the production of rockets and spacecraft will be offered to the Australian partners. No Russian government funds will be invested in the venture.
    The Avrora flight tests will be launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The first commercial launch out of Australia's Christmas Island is planned for the last quarter of 2003. After introduction, manufacturing and launch rates are projected to ramp up to as many as 15 launches per year by 2006.
    Avrora is capable of delivering 4.5 metric tons (9900 lbm) of payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit at 11 degrees inclination and over 2 metric tons (4400 lbm) directly to geostationary orbit.

  • You're quite right, a big problem right now is our president's foreign policy. I'm not saying he's a bad president, just that he has currently been a very poor diplomat (what with the way he handled Russia and China). Where's Nixon when you need him?

    The US of A a whipping boy? No, not quite. More like its head being shoved waaay up its own arse. Notice that every conflict that we have been in since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been economic in scope. An excellent example of how blind we are is currently at the top of rotten.com [rotten.com].

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