Australia Will Join U.S. for 2024 Moon Mission, Mars Exploration | Hacker News Reader

Australia Will Join U.S. for 2024 Moon Mission, Mars Exploration

bloomberg.com

76 pointsadventured36 comments

The net effect will be to stifle Australian space innovation which competes with NASA goals. It may be net beneficial to space science here but it won't risk any competitive tension so little or no development outside of the current NASA roadmap. The radio telescopes will be safe, the DSN needs them. The hypersonic shockwave work would be fine. Digital comms work would be fine. Microsats would be fine. Launches from OZ will be a big no.

It might buy half a seat in a future capsule once bigger fish have been pacified. Best if the Australian astronauts are already training in the US and ideally have dual nationality.

>It might buy half a seat in a future capsule once bigger fish have been pacified. Best if the Australian astronauts are already training in the US and ideally have dual nationality.

Ah yes, since Australians without US nationality have been flying into space this whole time right? All three Australian-born people who've flown became US citizens first. Meanwhile, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, and Israel have flown people on US spacecraft.

>The net effect will be to stifle Australian space innovation which competes with NASA goals.

What "Australian space innovation"?

>Launches from OZ will be a big no.

Ah yes, the Woomera field that has been used for manned launches for the past 40 years, right? No?

As misotaur said, Australia has nothing, absolutely nothing, to lose by allying with NASA. It's possible, for example, that SpaceX could get approval for using Woomera for launches, something ITAR currently prohibits.

I find it interesting that I know everything about the SpaceX plans for Mars (supplies mission in 2024, people in 2026), but I had no idea NASA has a mission to the moon in 2024.

They keep being forced to prop up Boeing by funding the SLS.

It was announced a few months ago and NASA recently added Details: https://www.nasa.gov/moontomars/ But with everything else going on with it did not really make the news cycle.

NASA isn't allowed to advertise in the same way spacex can.

NASA has social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, etc. Not sure what they're missing other than Elon Musk's promoting skills.

Politics.

Australia space agency`s budget is 10 million dollars,NASA has about 19 BILLION.I would also want this collaboration.

10 million?! That’s pitiful even compared to Australia’s GDP peers. Why so little?

Currently, the focus of the organisation has been on developing Governance, MOU's etc. $10M is basically seed to establish administration.

Because Australian politicians are loath to invest in anything, after spending ~20 years convincing the public that government spending is bad.

It's brand new

It took ten years to build up the 'Moon Shot' industry in the sixties. It would take at least that long this time to rebuild all of those factories and retrain the thousands of personnel to that level of expertise.

I am willing to state categorically that there will be no Moon Shot in 2024.

Non-paywalled version: http://archive.is/frI3q

There’s no point even commenting on the sycophantic nature of our (Australia’s) political leadership at the moment, so I’ll just leave it half un-commented - But maybe this means I can be an astronaut?!

I'm originally from Australia, and I went back to visit family a few times while I was driving around Africa.

I would always say "Australia has had more Coups than the Congo", which gets some interesting reactions.

With seven Prime Ministers in ten years, it's no wonder Australia has done absolutely nothing in ten years.

We haven’t had any major threats and frankly life is fucking good. And with ‘good’ comes complacency. It’s sad. You need shocks to the system to spur you on. I don’t know what to think but it’s still a lovely safe place to live and maybe that’s all I want

Do they make coal powered rockets?

Come to New Zealand, we'll chuck you on a Rocket Labs ride mate :D

How good that kiwis have a private rocket company and Australia doesn’t.

Frankly, having done a reasonable amount of business over the ditch the last couple years, the kiwis are just so much more practical and ‘get it done’ than we are. Less risk aversion, not looking to other places for guidance.

Whereas Australia seems to be continually looking elsewhere for guidance on what to do next (and not just politically).

Well, for once we're not following them to the middle east, so that's a plus.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of sending humans to the moon is, though. It was cool to do it once, but now we can probably do something more useful and productive with robots.

> Well, for once we're not following them to the middle east, so that's a plus.

> I'm not entirely sure what the point of sending humans to the moon is, though.

Could these be related? Just one month ago this study [1] came out pointing to the fact that in the future Australia may not be 100% sure it can rely on the US for defense. In particular, any further Middle East- related strains on the US war machine may result in a reduction of the US's capability and appetite to wage war in the Pacific. Given that, Australia needs to plan for the eventuality of building a missile force. The Moon and Mars things may just be an excuse for that.

[1] https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/averting-crisis-american-st...

I agree with your perspective. War that involves China means Australia needs access to space. The only form of plausible high ground we can get.

> I'm not entirely sure what the point of sending humans to the moon is, though.

It's the culmination of conservative leadership and vision. We're all back in the 60s and we'll do it right this time!

"I'm not entirely sure what the point of sending humans to the moon is, though'

Part of the progress of humanity, to colonize the universe?

Also, lot's of fun, wouldn't you like to jump around the moon and see into the infinite stars without filter?

I suppose that could give quite some people some needed perspective ..

From what I’ve seen they’ve got two aims. The first seems mostly to be dry running a Mars base, but without the added challenge of multi month transit times. The second is to put a space station in lunar orbit to use as a jumping off point for longer range missions.

Sure, but that does not really address the point. Couldn't we do all that with robots? There is no match for our brains; but robots bodies can sustain acceleration, temperature variations, lack of atmosphere, etc. much better than us. They work faster, longer, better, etc.

And thanks to telecommunications we can pilot them while staying in the comfort of our planet.

I think the biggest Advantages are Marketing and Stability.

With Humans on Mars you have it way easier to get the general Public behind space exploration.

And stability because Goverments cant cancel Projects without commiting political suicide. Leaving people to die up there would be really bad taste.

We've already been to Mars a bunch with robots. Time for something new!

Humans are much more adaptable than robots right now.

If something breaks or goes wrong on a robotic mission that’s often the end of it. We haven’t got robots advanced anywhere near to human levels yet.

I‘m not inspired by robots.

I think that one advantage of sending humans is that we can gather data about how living in space affects human beings.

We know what zero-g is like from the ISS, but what about the moon with 1/3rd g? Etc

How do we deal with the radiation problem? Is there a way to tunnel underneath the surface of the moon? Etc

Agreed, who would believe a single thing they come out with?

95 percent of the world's oceans and 99 percent of the ocean floor are unexplored

Whataboutism much? Why does everything nowadays have to be zero sum

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