Thanks for the info Paul. Doesn't he live near the central coast? That's a bit far for me at the moment but I will get in contact with David anyway just to find out more about what he teaches.
Brad, for your goals, these courses sound like a great thing for you so I think you should enrol. But yeah, all the institutions would be pretty much in holiday mode right now!
lol, I tend to be a bit of a windbag when it comes to astrofacts too. Sometimes I get asked questions by workmates that I simply do not know the answer to, so it would be nice to do a course that would improve one's knowledge of the heavens. For example, at my work's christmas party trivia, one question was, "What is the densest planet in the solar system" and at first I wrote Earth. Then for some reason, I remembered a silly joke that asked the same question and I somehow thought Pluto was the answer to that joke and so crossed out my initial answer and wrote that. Should have trusted my gut astronomer's instinct eh!? Needless to say, I didn't win
Ah yes, working for NASA would be a dream, even if I was just the coffee girl. But I have an even better idea - Australia should setup it's own version of NASA and then all the skilled astronomers wouldn't have to go overseas. But good old JH would never go for that...
Anyway, about the costs, I read it on the Swinburne website. I think the other payment scheme wouldn't apply to me from what i remember. I know we have to pay for university studies as well but I didn't pay it outright, I went through HECS so it makes it a bit easier to pay off. It's the upfront fees that those online courses incur that I would have trouble with paying. I wasn't aware that you could spread out the payments so I'm glad you told me. I might have to go back and look at these courses again, especially the JCU now that I know it's an Aussie thing.