Radio astronomy

AUSTRALIA has a proud history of radio astronomy. Tracking stations to support the Apollo program of the 1960s at Honeysuckle Creek, Parkes, Carnarvon and Cooby Creek were instrumental in relaying the telemetry and television pictures directly from the lunar surface to millions of viewers around the world.

While there remains tracking stations in Australia, most notably the CSIRO and NASA-operated Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla, there currently is no tracking station in Queensland as such, the only state of Australia that lacks a radio telescope facility.

I believe that with the NASA Artemis project to return to the moon and onward to Mars imminent, it is about time that Queensland took part in the communications network to support the project.

Regional universities such as the University of Southern Queensland are deprived of a readily available radio telescope that they could use for radio astronomy research in their astronomical and space sciences undergraduate program.

A hybrid radio-optical new technology could make Queensland a world leader in next generation space communications. But we need the investment in space technology research in Queensland first, before we can enjoy the fruits of the Artemis program.

I am urging the Federal and Queensland Governments to consider seriously its allocation of funding under the Trailblazer program directly supporting NASA’s Moon to Mars initiative, and give due consideration to the funding of a radio telescope similar in scale to that of Parkes in NSW but located somewhere in a radio quiet area of Southern Queensland. Such a facility would create hundreds of jobs in the space industry in the Southern Queensland area, and the benefits of this would flow on into the Australian economy for generations to come.

DAVE FREDERICKS, Toowoomba