Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty
If I ,as a South African can add to this discussion albeit unqualified, I would like to make two points.
1. Italy helping Kenya with their space program.
If it was the USA, Russia or China then there would be cause for concern.
2. I attended a presentation wrt SKA and South Africa's chances over Australia. The general feeling in South Africa is one of optimism for a number of reasons. The first is the governments committment to Astronomy and science in general. They have passed a series of legislation in favour of Astronomy and Science. Secondly when the presentation showed the South African tean involved in the SKA bid there were about 25 people (male and female). The average age was in the mid 20's and only 3 were astronomers, the remainder were scientists, engineers in various related disciplines.
On the Australian side there were less than 10, all astronomers and the average age in the 50's.
So , perhaps the problem in Australia is lack of governmet involvement and lack of interest from the youth of Australia.
Just an interested outsiders opinion.  |
I agree with you, Steve, to a point. There's always been a lack of government involvement and interest in science in Australia. Like politicians everywhere, most have an aversion to anything outside their narrow field of interest. As to the youth....that is a symptom of the education system and a society that treats science as something weird and not "normal". It's something not just applicable to Australia. It's rather endemic in many Western societies.
Regardless of whether it's Italy, th US, Russia or anyone else, there should be cause for concern where a country that's in the state it is, such as Kenya, will invest its money and time into something that at present it just doesn't need. They have more pressing problems to deal with than creating a space program.