CRCSS Space Industry News, Issue 79, June 1998
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What really happened to Australia's space effort?

Opinon, by Ken McCracken

Ken McCracken,
photo: Dr Kara-Mikal Burrowes.

"[First] you must never forget to ignore some of the PR, how space was 'for exploration of the Universe, for the good of Man'. It's a bunch of [rubbish].

Space was started by Wernher von Braun to drop rockets onto London town, and he was hijacked and went to the United States, and others went to Russia. And space, from the very beginning, was a military operation.

One of the problems the Brits had when they were building their own intercontinental ballistic missiles was that there wasn't much England to fly rockets in, so they hit upon the idea of having a rocket range in Australia. And Australia was keen on this because it meant that we would get money, and people, both of which, back in 1948, Australia wanted.

So we went into space for government reasons, and that was great for Australia. Our defence people used it a bit, our industry got contracts there, but then Britain decided to opt out of building their own intercontinental ballistic missiles. Then they decided to join the European space research organization, and Australia was the only non-European country that was invited to join.

... But the French were always good negotiators, so the French convinced everyone that rockets would be fired from French Guiana. Woomera would not be used; money stopped coming in for Woomera, Australia lost interest.

Someone from the government side will say that's not true, that McCracken's at it again. Of course we kept getting money from NASA, of course we kept doing things, yes, at a very small level, and the interest simply went to a minuscule level.

Woomera was primarily shut down, not totally shut down, and therefore you can't say we dropped it totally. But the level of interest in space from an indigenous point of view went to zero.

I had a chair in the University of Adelaide in the late 60s and we could inveigle our way onto rockets. It was not easy, and then they would stop. The concept of being able to do research in Australia was a non sequitur. Because of issues like that, it had never been regarded as an important goal for the country. I'm not going to argue with that. It was the decision [the government] took.

In the '80s we were arguing that it was important. So that was what changed, to say, 'all right, back in the 1960s people did not make the argument, we're now going to make the argument.' That's about the story. "

In making the argument, that space-science was important, Dr McCracken convinced CSIRO to allow him to coordinate all its space efforts [SpIN 77]. This, after twelve years, directly led to the formation of the CRC for Satellite Systems, and the chance we have now to reestablish Australia in space.

Dr Ken McCracken, pioneering Australian space researcher and inaugural Head of CSIRO's Office of Space Science and Applications, is widely regarded as Australia's foremost expert on space. This is an extract of an interview with Wayne Deeker, recorded in November 1997.