by theluckycountry » Tue 30 Sep 2025, 14:15:34
Well we can build little rockets, just not with a lot of success. I remember they had a program at the University of Queensland when I was studying there, 30 odd years ago. It was called HighShot or something. It was basically a program to get engineering students some credits in rocketry so if they wanted to go work for Boeing they had a better resume. Australia has never seriously pursued such a program since the 1940's.
I was watching an unbiased youtube last night that described the failure of the Boeing "StarLiner", it described the waste of the Shuttle program too, a program that was nothing more than a nod to the shuttles in Space Odyssey 2000 I thought. It worked, but at 4 times the price of conventional rocketry. So yes, throw enough money at something and you'll get results.
Whose the leader there now? A south African immigrant. An Hustler, a wheeler dealer, a marketing man basically, a salesman. You only have to listen to his interviews, there isn't an engineering bone in his body. He has a degree in physics and economics, the latter being BS and the former being praiseworthy. But I have known enough Engineers who transitioned into sales from the start and they forgot more than they learned. If you're a good salesman, that's all that matters, and Elon is the consummate salesman.
I don't have any issue with Australia's toy rocket failures, and to honest, I didn't even know of them. I don't read Australian news unless there is a disaster ongoing, it's boring. God knows Boeing and Space-X have had their share of failures too though, that's just been part of the game from the very beginning in Germany. But our endeavors are just that, kids playing with toys, nothing serious. It's the media that spins it into a Big Story like it matters no doubt. The same media that Raves on about a "Blue Moon" or a "Lunar Eclipse" as though those mean anything. Australia is quite a boring country as far as innovation and drama goes and that probably contributes to the Hype. There is not much going on here that's sensational and newsworthy. We just go about the business of living ordinary lives, acquiring the best tech from around the world in exchange for resources, Food and minerals, Energy. We're a practical people, we don't have delusions of grandeur. How could a nation with such a tiny population and such high wages ever hope to compete with the big industrial players like Japan and Germany, China and to a lesser degree now, America. Look at Singapore, Population 6 Million, a total success? For China yes.
Demographics of Singapore
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s of June 2025, the population of Singapore stood at 6.11 million. Of these 4.20 million are residents, consisting of about 3.66 million citizens and 540,000 permanent residents. While Malays are recognized as the indigenous community, 75.5 percent of citizens and permanent residents are ethnic Chinese, with Malays and Indians making up 15.1 and 7.6 percent respectively. These three groups comprise 98.2 percent of the ethnic citizen population.
It's not so much a country but a factory, a financial hub like Hong Kong, and a petrochemical Hub. So success but not for the peoples in the street so much.
Big programs like Space rocketry might give some a sense of national pride, but they don't put steaks on the table or motorcycles in the garage. Here the government provides free healthcare and a pension of $2600/month, more if you don't own a house! A pension that's means tested, but you can have like $300,000 in the bank before they begin cutting it. I'd rather have that than a bunch of rockets sending boffins to the International Trailer Park, or crashing cars into the surface of Mars

And that should have been the wake up call for all Tesla Fanboi, Manned Mars mission? In your dreams.
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.