What did we do after Australis?
We were university students and so we got on with our studies. Later we did all the usual things Australians do: get a job, start a business, marry, start a family, enjoy our children and later grandchildren. Some of us have retired, giving us time to reflect on our lives and life. Have a look at the People tab.
We are agreed that we were incredibly lucky to have been born when we were, to whom and where. Although there have been regional conflicts in which Australians were involved (Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East), we avoided world war and our lives have been peaceful, rewarding and largely without regret.
Could Australian university students build another Australis today? No, not in the same way, although Australian universities did fly some cubesats in April 2017, see the LINKS page. Today Australis would be barely more than a few electronic chips stuck in the corner of a cubesat. On the other hand, 3D printing and tiny, tiny computers and electronics make so much more possible. I suspect that amateur radio does not carry the cachet that it used to. The technical excitement has changed with evolving technology.
But worst of all, our hyper-regulation pretty much excludes it. I've been told that there are efforts to reduce the cost of an Australian application to have a satellite launched to $200,000 - utterly out of the question for most universities and certainly schools. (Yet even US primary schools have flown their own cubesats!) Tests on balloons, as we did, have been forbidden until fairly recently and then only after a mountain of paperwork. Sad.
The baton is now with the millennials and the Z generation.
We were university students and so we got on with our studies. Later we did all the usual things Australians do: get a job, start a business, marry, start a family, enjoy our children and later grandchildren. Some of us have retired, giving us time to reflect on our lives and life. Have a look at the People tab.
We are agreed that we were incredibly lucky to have been born when we were, to whom and where. Although there have been regional conflicts in which Australians were involved (Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East), we avoided world war and our lives have been peaceful, rewarding and largely without regret.
Could Australian university students build another Australis today? No, not in the same way, although Australian universities did fly some cubesats in April 2017, see the LINKS page. Today Australis would be barely more than a few electronic chips stuck in the corner of a cubesat. On the other hand, 3D printing and tiny, tiny computers and electronics make so much more possible. I suspect that amateur radio does not carry the cachet that it used to. The technical excitement has changed with evolving technology.
But worst of all, our hyper-regulation pretty much excludes it. I've been told that there are efforts to reduce the cost of an Australian application to have a satellite launched to $200,000 - utterly out of the question for most universities and certainly schools. (Yet even US primary schools have flown their own cubesats!) Tests on balloons, as we did, have been forbidden until fairly recently and then only after a mountain of paperwork. Sad.
The baton is now with the millennials and the Z generation.