Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person man with a net worth of US$187.5 billion, and the second richest Elon Musk, who has net worth of US$146.7 billion, have been banging on about life in space for many years and now Australia’s Defence Department is joining in, albeit with a far smaller budget of around $7 billion over 10 years.
It is setting up a Space Division within the Royal Australian Air Force early next year with Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld AO, DSC, stating “assured access” to Space was critical, Defence said in a statement.
A woman, Air Vice-Marshal Cath Roberts, has been chosen as the inaugural Head of Defence Space Division.
“We use Space daily for understanding the weather, navigating, access to geospatial information and sharing information across Australia or across the world,” Air Marshal Hupfeld said.
“Defence is delivering capabilities including Space domain awareness, sovereign controlled satellite communications and Space-based Earth observation, and navigation.”
I still think Bezos and Musk will fly into space first and be the first to land on Mars.
