Come on Mars trip with us, says NASA

The head of NASA is urging Australia to partner with the US in returning to the moon, then Mars.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Canberra had to think big on space. Picture: AFP

The head of space agency NASA has called on Australia to become a key partner with the US in its grand vision of returning to the moon, then heading to Mars.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Canberra had to think big on space, as he paid tribute to Australia’s role in helping­ bring the telecast of the 1969 moon landing to the world.

Mr Bridenstine said all Australians should be proud of the role the Parkes Observatory in NSW, also known as “The Dish”, played in showing the world what the West could achieve at the height of the Cold War.

“Australia played a very significan­t role,” he told The Australian in Washington yesterday ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.

“We have to remember, when the Apollo program was under way we were in this contest of great power between the US and Soviet Union and trying to demonstrate our political system, our economic system and our technological prowess was superior.

“And part of that required us to make sure we took images and photos but also downlinked the raw footage in real time so the whole world could watch as we demonstrated this technology.

“That this was possible was because of the ­ (Honeysuckle Creek) receiver in Canberra, which took in those beautiful images­ of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon, especially those very first few steps where Neil said: ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’.

“Canberra enabled all of that to be presented to the entire world.”

The Parkes Observatory support­ed the famous television signals on July 21, 1969, when Armstrong took his historic first steps on the moon’s surface. Its radio telescope provided live visio­n for two hours and 12 minute­s to a worldwide audience of more than 600 million people.

Mr Bridenstine said the commemoration of the historic mission should be a call to the future of space exploration. “We are very excited to on-ramp Australia in that agenda … to go to the moon … (and) the next step is Mars.”

He said the Australian Space Agency, founded last year, could play a key role in helping to further­ develop technologies that would be needed if astronauts were to survive for years in space on a mission to Mars.

These included autonomous drilling and remote extraction of resources, which our mining industry­ is investing in.

Mr Bridenstine was attending a ceremony at the home of Australian ambassador Joe Hockey to celebrate Australia’s role in the moon landing. Former NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy, a pilot and commander on space shuttle missions from 2000-07 who has spent time in Australia encouraging start-up companies in the space industry, was also there.

She told attendees she dreams that one day “a girl growing up in the Northern Territ­ory or the Pilbara­” would become Aust­ralia’s first female astronaut.

US President Donald Trump has urged NASA to expand its horizo­ns by going back to the moon before a human flight to Mars. “For Americans, nothing is impossible,” Mr Trump said in his July 4 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. “I want you to know that we’re going to be back on the moon very soon, and, some day soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.”

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia