Australia’s first rocket company continues to be blocked by red tape
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.
The first rocket launch by Gilmour Space, Australia’s first rocket company, from its Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia has apparently been blocked by continuing bureaucratic regulatory red tape.
In February the company had announced a planned launch date in March, based on what appeared to be the issuance (after more than a year’s delay) of its launch licence. That launch however never happened, with no public explanation, until now. From the link above:
In an update on Sunday, the Queensland-based firm said it had received approval from CASA and is now waiting for final clearance from the Australian Space Agency.
…It had planned for an inaugural blast-off in April 2024 but faced a lengthy delay in obtaining its final permit from the Australian Space Agency.
In other words, the launch license had only been promised, but then was not issued, leaving the company stranded for several more months, with that license still buried in the government’s byzantine operations.
The article at the link says the Australian government is now moving to streamline its space regulatory system, but don’t believe it. The elections this week saw a resounding victory for the leftist coalition with the conservative party defeated handily. With the left now in firm control, expect the regulation to increase, not decrease. Leftwing governments almost never reduce regulation. It goes against their power-hungry genetics.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.
The first rocket launch by Gilmour Space, Australia’s first rocket company, from its Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia has apparently been blocked by continuing bureaucratic regulatory red tape.
In February the company had announced a planned launch date in March, based on what appeared to be the issuance (after more than a year’s delay) of its launch licence. That launch however never happened, with no public explanation, until now. From the link above:
In an update on Sunday, the Queensland-based firm said it had received approval from CASA and is now waiting for final clearance from the Australian Space Agency.
…It had planned for an inaugural blast-off in April 2024 but faced a lengthy delay in obtaining its final permit from the Australian Space Agency.
In other words, the launch license had only been promised, but then was not issued, leaving the company stranded for several more months, with that license still buried in the government’s byzantine operations.
The article at the link says the Australian government is now moving to streamline its space regulatory system, but don’t believe it. The elections this week saw a resounding victory for the leftist coalition with the conservative party defeated handily. With the left now in firm control, expect the regulation to increase, not decrease. Leftwing governments almost never reduce regulation. It goes against their power-hungry genetics.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Whether it is space or aviation, don’t bother to try doing it in Australia. The bureaucrats in both CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority*) and Australian Space Agency (who would know nothing about launching rockets) will have the same modus operandi. Encourage a business, bleed them dry with permit fees etc, delays until just before the project comes to fruition, it runs out of money. Too bad, so sad. Seen it often.
Gilmour should pack up and move to the USA.
Australia is an open air prison, a country of convicts lorded over by prison warders.
*Note that this isn’t an Agency or Administration, but an AUTHORITY. Tells you about the mindset.
Further to last weekend’s Australian election. The Australian Labor Party (currently hard left, leader is former Sydney University Student Union Trotskyite) won and has enough seats in the lower house to govern in its own right. We won’t know the make up of the Senate for a couple of weeks but with luck the minor parties will make it resemble the Mos Eisely cantina.
The nominal “Conservatives” (actually Center Left) ran an abysmal campaign with an extremely uncharismatic leader and no clear and consistent policies. Designed to lose. Also Australia has had extremely high levels of immigration and the welfare dependent vote herd votes Labor for more bennies.
Stick a fork in us, we’re done. We don’t have enough hard working Germans to make an East Germany work (they almost but not quite, made Communism work) so it is pre Milei Argentina for us or worse, Venezuela.
Donald, please send the Marines.
I’ll take an East German over the gang bangers near me–the krauts only shoot–what?–every half century or so?
Mike Borgelt,
I live in California here in the States so I feel your pain. Trump’s victory, though – along with some truly world-class incompetence on the part of LA’s uber-woke administration (I’ll see you a Trotskyite Prime Minister with a Venceremos Brigadista mayor) – has laid the potential groundwork for at least, perhaps, the ending of Democrat super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature and some improvement to the composition of the California delegation in the US House of Representatives. There’s even a long-shot possibility of a Republican Governor here. We shall see.
Sadly, you’re not going to be seeing those Marines anytime soon. My guess is we may soon have our hands quite full dealing with the various shards of a disintegrated Canada. The Prairie Provinces have about had it with the Parasite Provinces and this most recent election farce may well prove the last straw. The majority of current Canadian territory could wind up part of the US before long and the rest could become quasi-hostile statelets on our borders. The Marines are far more likely to be storming the northern shores of the Great Lakes than making an amphibious assault on Bondi.
Is there any possibility of Tasmania seceding do you think?