I believe that continued U.S. leadership in the global economy depends on expanding commercial space industries, especially human space flight. The regulatory regime proposed is not one designed to get the commercial space industry off the ground.

And we need commercial space flight. Not just because I want to dancing on the Moon (to quote an old song I know). Since the end of WWII, the United States has been able to maintain economic dominance and political hegemony as a consequence. Our overall high standard of living relies on this.

But folks in the rest of the world are not stupid. They study and catch up.

But now, coming over the horizon, is the potential dawn of a new age in commercial space travel. New Mexico recently entered into a deal to build a commercial space port. We have interest in space tourism and commercial reasons to want to establish a permanent manned presence in space. (To take one simple example, the commercial satellite industry could save a bundle if we could construct and service satellites in space rather than build them on the ground and shoot them up in space and hope nothing happens to them.) When Dennis Tito appeared at a Congressional hearing to talk about his adventures as the first "space tourist," he was greeted by a crowd of cheering admirers. Virgin Space, Virgin Atlantic's space company, has a waiting list of folks willing to pay $100K to go up into space for a few minutes and land safely. The conditions are right for U.S. entreprenurialism, wanderlust, and our intrepid goofiness that makes us wanna do stuff no sane and mature person would want to do, to create a new market in commercial space industries and maintain economic dominance.

Given our history of involvement in British and later European space programs, as well as a continuing support role in NASA activities, one might have expected that Australia would have moved beyond its peripheral role. Australia has made a great effort towards its astronomy programs. We built the simple satellites, Wresat in 1967 and Australis-Oscar 5 in 1970. We built skills in spacecraft tracking, rocket systems, satellite communications, through the Aussat and now Optus Communications satellites, and in remote sensing. However, successive governments only committed small funds towards a space program and its high technology industries, and might be said to have regarded space as a high-risk arena and Cold War relic. The allocation of direct space funds ceased in July 1996; the current Australian Government has used existing funding mechanisms, and directed them to a practical demonstration program, through the Cooperative Research Centre program. The Government has stated goals for Australia: to be a player on the international scene and to build scientific and industrial capacity through innovative, modest space missions.