Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales

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Journal and Proceedings

of the

Royal Society of New South Wales

2020

Volume 153 Part 1

Numbers 477 & 478

“... for the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy ...”

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

OFFICE BEARERS FOR 2020

Patron Her Excellency The Honourable Margaret Beazley AO QC Governor of New South Wales President Em. Professor Ian Sloan AO FRSN PhD (UCL) FAA Vice-Presidents Em. Professor D Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI Dr Susan Pond AM FRSN DSc (UQ) FRACP FTSE FAHMS FAICD Ms Judith Wheeldon AM FRSN BS (Wis) MEd (Syd) FACE Hon. Secretary (Ed.) Em. Professor Robert Marks FRSN MEngSci PhD (Stan) FRSA Hon. Secretary(Gen) Mr Bruce Ramage MRSN Hon. Treasurer Mr Richard Wilmott MRSN Hon. Librarian Mr John Hardie FRSN FHEA FGS MACE Hon. Webmaster Em. Professor Lindsay Botten FRSN PhD (Tas) FOSA FAIP FAusMS Councillors Mr Ian Bryce MRSN Em. Professor Robert Clancy AM FRSN PhD (Mon) FRACP FRCPSC The Honorable Virginia Judge FRSN Mr Stuart Midgley MRSN Em. Professor Bruce Milthorpe FRSN BA PhD (ANU) Grad Dip Ed Ms Nyrie Palmer MRSN Em Professor Christina Slade FRSN BA PhD (ANU) Grad Dip Ed Adjunct Professor Robert Whittaker AM FRSN FAIB Hunter Branch Secretary Em. Professor Eugenie Lumbers AM DistFRSN MBBS MD DSci Southern Highlands Branch Rep. Ms Anne Wood FRSN Executive Office The Association Specialists

EDITORIAL BOARD Em. Prof. Robert Marks FRSN FRSA MEngSci ResCert MS PhD (Stan) – Hon. Editor Prof. Richard Banati FRSN MD PhD Prof. Michael Burton FRSN MA MMaths (Cantab) PhD (Edinb) FASA FAIP Dr. Jessica Milner Davis FRSN PhD (UNSW) Dr Len Fisher OAM FRSN BA BSc(Hns) MA MSc PhD (UNSW) FRSC FRACI FInstP FLS Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD Em. Prof. David Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI Dr Nick Lomb BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) FASA FRSA Prof. Timothy Schmidt FRSN BSc (Syd) PhD (Cantab)

Website: http://www.royalsoc.org.au

The Society traces its origin to the Philosophical Society of Australasia founded in Sydney in 1821. The Society exists for “the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy”: publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings; conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liaising with other learned societies within Australia and internationally. Membership is open to any person whose application is acceptable to the Society. Subscriptions for the Journal are also accepted. The Society welcomes, from members and non- members, manuscripts of research and review articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal and Proceedings.

2 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 1–3. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010001-03

Editorial: The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics

Robert E. Marks

his issue has been produced during performance by her on the same occasion of Tthe pandemic. Although it is mainly Bach’s Solo Violin Partita No. 1 in G minor a record of the Four Academies Forum, BWV 1001. This is a departure for theJournal , of last November, it also contains other although not the first article on music.3 papers — not least a timely paper by Graham Although memories of the smoke and Bell FRSN outlining a test for changes in haze have faded with winter and the pan- taste (and smell) that might be evidence of demic, the fires last summer were horrific, infection by COVID-19. This test, although lasting almost six months on the back of not definitive, can be performed at home, a fierce drought.4 I was aware of Stephen and might lead to further, more rigorous J. Pyne, at Arizona State University, the testing for any possible infection.1 doyen of writers on bushfires and wild In late June2, the Society held its Annual fires. He has written several books on such Dinner, via Zoom. Four of us gathered chez fires in the U.S., Australia and elsewhere.5 moi to have dinner and watch proceedings. In particular, thirty years ago he wrote a Brian Schmidt DistFRSN, introduced by book specifically on the history of bushfires the Governor, our Patron, Margaret Bea- in Australia, Burning Bush (1991). I had the zley, spoke on “Evidence and education in idea of approaching him to commission a a post-truth and post-COVID world.” The paper which might build on the 1991 book, Governor’s learned introduction, followed in the light of last summer’s fires. He was by Professor Schmidt’s address, are both very receptive to my invitation, being on published here. the point of publishing an op-ed piece on There is also a paper by David Hush the topic in the Guardian.6 More of a reflec- FRSN, presented on the occasion of the tion on past and future fires, the paper here world premiere performance, on 27 Febru- introduces the notion of the Pyrocene era, ary 2020 at the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, of his Partita for Solo Violin, in the tradition of J. S. Bach and others. This piece 3 See, for instance, David Hush. Reflections on Mozart. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of was commissioned by the Royal Society, a New South Wales 151: 209–212, 2018. first. As well as a discussion of the history 4 A weekend house of mine in the Blue Mountains of solo sonatas for violin, the paper includes was utterly destroyed four days before Christmas. The hyper-text links to recordings of this perfor- ashes of Olivia Newton-John’s father, Brinley (1914– mance by Anna Da Silva Chen, as well as a 1992), are (still) buried on the property. 5 Sadly, my copies were incinerated last December. It’s Kindle from now on for me. 1 Graham tells me that a pre-pub version of the paper has led to an invitation from the Japanese 6 Stephen J. Pyne, “The Australian fires are a har- Association for Smell and Taste Science (JASTS) for binger of things to come. Don’t ignore their warning, their virtual conference in October. The Guardian, 7 January 2020. https://www.theguard ian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/07/australia-fires- 2 June 27th, the 199th birthday of the Society. warning

1 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics affecting not just Australia (although espe- on the counter-intuitive lack of stability of cially affecting Australia) but also Califor- large complex eco-systems; Eugene Wigner nia, the Mediterranean, to begin with, and (1902–1995) had proved this for systems in then, one by one, increasingly flammable physics. But Wigner (1960) had remarked regions across the globe. Incidentally, I was on the “unreasonable effectiveness of math- not alone in thinking of Steve Pyne: an old ematics” in the natural sciences: “The mira- friend of mine, Henry Rosenbloom, pub- cle of the appropriateness of the language lisher of Scribe Books in Melbourne, also of mathematics for the formulation of the approached him. The result of some hard laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we work across the Pacific is The Still-Burning neither understand nor deserve.” Bob May Bush (2020). was one of the first to show that mathemat- Another departure for the Journal was ics also serves this role in the biological and the last issue, Volume 152, Number 3, March ecological sciences. 2020. This venture, between the Royal Soci- As for the Forum, it has stood out for ety and the Australian and New Zealand me as demanding the most work of any of Associations of von Humboldt Fellows, the four Forums I’ve edited. Of the sixteen includes papers from their 2019 Biennial presentations on the day, over six months Symposium at Macquarie University. David later I have received only eight final papers. Black FRSN was the mid-wife to the venture. Yes, the corona virus has disrupted work It is on-line only. Given the topic of the 2017 patterns, but none of the recalcitrants Forum7 and Brian Schmidt’s address here, mentioned the pandemic as a reason for of special interest is the piece by Dietmar their lack of response, if indeed they gave Höttecke.8 any. Since I see the Journal as a publication Sadly, one of our Distinguished Fellows, of record of the Society’s activities, I here Lord Robert May of Oxford, died earlier this publish lightly edited the transcripts of the year. Len Fisher FRSN, his old friend, has eight presentations, the papers for which written an obituary. Lord May’s prolific work are missing in action. The other eight papers in physics, biology, and ecology included a are present. development that is very timely during the There have been some changes to the pandemic: he and co-authors derived the Editorial Board. Following the appoint- reproductive ratio for pandemics (an indica- ment of Len Fisher FRSN last year, this year tion of the speed of spread of the infection), Jessica Milner Davis FRSN has joined the which we have heard much about recently. Board, and we thank the departing Michael As the obituary notes, the May-Wigner theo- Lake for long service to the Journal, first as rem derives from theoretical work of May’s Editor, and then as Editorial Board member, for over twelve years. Thank you to Jason Antony, as always. I also thank John Spence 7 “The Future of Reason in a Post-Truth World,” FRS for the epigraph from Eugene Wigner Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 151: 22–105, 2018. that began this editorial. 8 Dietmar Höttecke, Understanding science and how it works in the age of social media, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 152: 307–319, 2020.

2 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics

References Wigner E. (1960) “The unreasonable Pyne S. J. (1991) Burning Bush: A Fire History of effectiveness of mathematics in the natural Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney. sciences,” Communications in Pure and Applied Pyne S. J. (2020) The Still-Burning Bush, revised. Mathematics, 13 (I): 1–14 (February). http:// Scribe, Melbourne. www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/ reading/Wigner.html

3 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 4–13. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010004-10

Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world

Brian Schmidt Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University Email: [email protected]

Abstract Professor Brian Schmidt AC FRS DistFRSN FAA and Nobel Laureate in Physics gave this address at the 2020 Annual General Meeting of the Royal Society of NSW on 27 June 2020. It was Zoomed. He was introduced by Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Governor of NSW.

Margaret Beazley: the truth, but most pick themselves up and It is my delight as your Patron to join with hurry off as if nothing had happened.”2 But you tonight in celebrating 199 years of the I digress from the timely topic upon which Royal Society of NSW — the oldest learning tonight’s guest speaker, Professor Brian society in the Southern Hemisphere. Schmidt, will speak. The Royal Society’s original name — the In 2016, the word post-truth was the Philosophical Society of Australasia — and Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year. the Society’s purpose of advancing and Defined to mean “relating to or denoting communicating knowledge, bring to mind circumstances in which objective facts are Plato’s description of the philosopher as less influential in shaping public opinion concerned with the pursuit of truth: “not than appeals to emotion and personal belie.”3 the changing world of sensation, which is So defined, “post truth” describes a world the object of opinion, but the unchanging which is the perfect inversion of Plato’s phi- reality which is the object of knowledge.”1 losopher. Time Magazine well understood Whilst, in the 21st century, knowledge devel- this, pointing out that “post-truth” is where ops exponentially, Plato’s differentiation of “feelings trump facts.”4 sentiment from knowledge remains as a None of this is new. Writing in 1967, phi- granite-like edifice in the pursuit of truth. losopher Hannah Arendt observed in her Plato’s perception of the pursuit of truth essay “Truth and Politics,” “the greatest is to be contrasted with what Winston antagonist of factual truth is an opinion, Churchill perceived to be the essential pursuit of lawyers. As a lawyer, I know that law 2 Attributed to Winston Churchill, “Picturesque is concerned with the application of princi- speech and patter,” Reader’s Digest 40 (April 1942) 92. ple to found facts — which are the truth for 3 Oxford University Press, “Word of the Year 2016” that purpose. According to Churchill, how- https://global.oup.com/academic/content/word-of- the-year/?cc=au&lang=en ever, lawyers “occasionally stumble across 4 Kelly Steinmetz (2016) “Oxford’s word of the year for 2016 is post truth” TIME Magazine (online, 15 1 Plato, ‘The Philosopher and the Two Orders of November) https://time.com/4572592/oxford-word- Reality’ The Republic. of-the-year-2016-post-truth/

4 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world

[not] a lie.”5 And in 1992, Serbian Ameri- times. 9 The top 1% of false-news tweets “rou- can playwright Steve Tesich, who is credited tinely diffused to between 1,000 and 100,000 with popularizing the term “post-truth” in people” — at six times the rate of the truth.10 his essay “A Government of Lies,” criticized The most common categories of false-news, the public for submitting to a world “where were, in order: politics, urban legends, busi- truth was no longer important or relevant.”6 ness, terrorism & war, science & technology, The President at the time was George Bush, entertainment and natural disasters. snr. The current coronavirus outbreak, For the philosopher, no less than every COVID-19 — or “Rona” as it is more col- person who seeks to be an engaged and loquially referred to on Twitter11 — has informed member of our society, it is con- demonstrated both the sheer devastation cerning, if not chilling, that what this 2016 that a post-truth discourse can have and the word of the year represents has become part strength of its counterpart — “researched of our contemporary Zeitgeist — where truth” — by which I mean evidence-based mass communication has enabled a disinformation. course in which experts are “perceived as a In this regard, Australia’s response to cartel of villians,”7 where experts are disre- COVID-19, has been careful, vigilant and garded in favour of those whose popularity impressive. The Government has based or celebrity provides a platform from which its policy and decision-making on infec- to proffer “their” opinion8 — invariably sub- tion rates, sources of infection, scientific jective and emotional — which is “truth,” at research and modelling.12 And, importantly, least for that day. the focus of social media in this country has An MIT study, published in 2018, ana- been on the provision to the community lysed English language news stories tweeted of government and health-based informa- from 2006 to 2017. The study found 126,000 tion, not the provision of someone’s mere false news stories were re-tweeted by just opinion. over 3 million people, more than 4.5 million It can readily be seen that reliance upon “evidence” by decision makers is thus inherently valuable. One only needs to utter the words “disinfectant” and “a sort of

5 Hannah Arendt (1967) “Truth and politics” The New Yorker (25 February) https://www.newyorker.com/ 9 Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy and Sinan Aral magazine/1967/02/25/truth-and-politics (2018) “The spread of true and false news online” Sci- ence 359(6380): 1146–1151 (9 March) https://science. 6 Yael Brahms (2020) “Philosophy of post-truth” sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146/tab-pdf Institute for National Security Studies, 1. 10 Robinson Meyer (2018) “The grim conclusions 7 Matthew D’Ancona (2018), Post-Truth: The New War of the largest-ever study of fake news” The Atlantic on Truth and How to Fight Back, Ebury Publishing. (online, 8 March) https://www.theatlantic.com/tech 8 Nick Enfield (2017) “In a post-truth world, who nology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news- can we believe?” (17 November, online) University of mit-twitter/555104/ Sydney https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/ 11 https://twitter.com/hashtag/rona?lang=en news/2017/11/17/we_re-in-a-post-truth-world-with- eroding-trust--it-can-t-end-wel.html 12 See, e.g, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center https://coronavirus.jhu. edu/map.html

5 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world cleaning,”13 to say nothing of the reported gratulate the 2020 Award winners as we observation that “if we stop testing, we’d all settle back and listen to our eminent have fewer cases,” to appreciate, indeed and erudite guest speaker, Professor Brian cringe, at the difference. Schmidt, the Vice Chancellor of the Aus- So, in a post-truth, post-COVID world, it tralian National University, as he speaks to has never been more essential to know and us on “Evidence and Education in a Post-Truth understand the evidence, as decisions are and Post-COVID world”. — Margaret Beazley made in respect of education for the immediate and near future — decisions which will The Address have a lasting impact on the present and f there is one thing that the motion of upcoming generations, decisions which Idemocracy has made me better under- cannot lose sight of what “education” is. stand over the past few years, it is the rise of In Trent Dalton’s debut novel, Boy Swal- Fascism in Europe after World War I. How lows Universe, there is an exchange between could a whole country do things that were Robert, the dissolute father of the two boys so crazy and so horrible — I never under- around whom the story revolves and the stood it. I still don’t understand it, but I now school counsellor.14 The father, the usually know how it can happen — and it all comes drunk, sad wreck of a man but who, per- from playing with people’s minds and values versely, reads widely, says to the counsellor, by the information they receive. “Educating the mind without educating the The Germans, under Goebbels’ leadership, heart is no education at all.” He references produced the propaganda playbook which the quote to Aristotle, as the stunned coun- was used in the years after World War II by sellor nods in agreement, saying it is the non-democratic governments around the mantra by which she lives. world to control their people. Researchers doubt the attribution but do But, in the years after 1945 — despite a accept that Aristotle likely said that “teach- protracted Cold-War that had huge nega- ing is powerless without a foundation of tive effects to people outside the central good habits.” John Dewey, the American players — the open democracies, capitalism, philosopher and educator was of similar and the emergence of technology ultimately mind. On the title page of Tara Westover’s crushed the alternative forms of government memoir Educated, appears this quote from from having significant power. The decisive Dewey, “I believe … that education must be end was on 9 November 1989 with the sym- conceived as a continuing reconstruction bolised fall of the Berlin Wall. of experience; that the process and the goal With this event passing, a highly intercon- of education are one and the same thing.”15 nected globalised society emerged — with May I again wish the Royal Society of human life expectancy rapidly rising, and NSW a very happy 199th birthday and con- poverty rapidly falling across the world. After 100,000 years humans had finally — it seems to me — learned to work en masse, 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicGxU5MfwE largely for the collective good. This is not 14 Tent Dalton (2018) Boy Swallows Universe, Harper to say it was perfect everywhere, but it was Collins, 302. 15 Tara Westover (2018) Educated, Penguin.

6 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world the broadest-scale improvement for human- evidence they applied to the problems of ity as a whole in our history. the world were highly regarded both in the And, in my lifetime, a lot has changed. West, and, of course, in the Soviet Union. In my childhood (and I am only 53 years Every year, more and more people were old), China has had mass starvation and involved in technologically-underpinned malnutrition, but in recent decades it has pursuits. In the space race, nearly 6 per seen a rapid economic shift by embracing cent of US government expenditure was western capitalism, and driving the mass spent “to get a Man on the Moon” — and production of increasingly less expensive the Cold War created a huge investment in consumer goods to more and more of the defence-related technology. To some, this world. China’s relatively low labour costs, might be seen as a waste of money. But I coupled with their rapid increases in pro- disagree — the economic and other positive ductivity and associated resource boom, has spill overs to society were enormous … largely led to Australia’s economic prosper- Higher Education became something ity, and only now are we seeing an end to a children in the upper half of the income dis- 28-year period of growth. tribution aspired to, rather than the upper In the time immediately following World half per cent — and universities around the War II, the research and the technology that world grew in size although, unfortunately, emerged was front of mind for everyone. not necessarily in stature. In the pinot noir University-trained researchers led many of business (also one of my trades), if everyone the biggest discoveries and scientific break- can afford your wine, it is, almost by defini- throughs of the 20th century. They discov- tion, not perceived as being very good, no ered penicillin — and Howard Florey later matter the quality. became ANU Chancellor. Mark Oliphant, a And technology, based on the basic founding ANU physicist, led a team in Eng- research of universities, increasingly land to develop the foundations or radar; emerged out of corporations (rather than and then went on to help with centrifuge universities and government labs). These uranium in Oakridge that led to the crea- entities became huge when they created tion of a nuclear bomb. Kenneth Le Couteur, something everyone wanted, and entre- another founding ANU physicist, worked preneurial billionaires who were usually alongside Alan Turing who cracked the educated — or partially educated at uni- Enigma Machine. And of course, a vaccine versity (noting some very famous drop- for polio was developed saving millions of outs … ) — became (and still are) the new people around the world. Percival Bazeley technological heroes. who worked in Salk’s lab, returned to Aus- So we are now in a time where it is not so tralia to run the Commonwealth Serum much the researchers, but rather the innova- Laboratories (CSL). CSL are of course, tors who are seen as important figures by the currently working on a COVID-19 vaccine public. It not the people or organisations as which will be available in the (hopefully) not much who invented the technologies, but too distant future … rather the innovators who converted those Scientists were king in the 1950s. Their ideas and became rich. education, associated knowledge and the

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But research did continue — and at pace I believe this day in 1993 — April 22 — is across the world — but in a more anonymised the day of my life where the course of the form. Huge research teams found the par- world changed more than any other. ticles that vindicated the standard theory A big call, but on that day, information of particle physics; sequenced the Human became shareable between everyone in the Genome; and detected Gravitational waves. world — not immediately of course, but They also greatly increased agriculture effi- shareable. ciency and improved public health. Life Before that day, facts were found in books expectancy for people around the world has in libraries — the information in them was risen from 46 years in 1950 to 72 years today. curated by expert academics around the In 2015 less than 10 per cent of the world was world and in democracies reported by a free living in extreme poverty, down from 42 per press. In democracies the academies and the cent in 1981, when the current measure was press were self-regulated with power and first introduced. influence related to the perceived quality In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, who was part of the knowledge, analysis and reporting. of one of those big anonymised teams at In 2020, while prestige in the academy and CERN (and whose mother Mary Lee Woods press still flows from quality — the power worked at Mt Stromlo Observatory at and influence of elite institutions is slowly ANU where I work — again emphasising being overwhelmed by the ever increasing how connected our universities really are din of information on the internet. to the events that have shaped the century) In 1993 I was excited. I could see the invented the world-wide-web. promise. Everyone finally has a voice. Eve- This invention enabled the -inter ryone has access to the world’s knowledge. net — developed out of DARPA in the It will be impossible for institutions or indi- USA and widely used in the research com- viduals to avoid transparency. munity — to be used by anyone and eve- But even in 1993 I already could see some ryone to easily exchange information. I emerging issues. With so much informa- remember the day that “WWW” was effec- tion, how do you find what was interesting? tively born for me (and for the world). In And, geeze, there was a lot of junk … I lived 1993, when Mosaic16 — the first graphical through the World Wide Web Wanderer18, browser — was released for UNIX, I down- then Infoseek19, then WebCrawler20, then loaded it using Gopher17 (the internet pre Lycos21, Excite22, AltaVista23 and HotBot24. WWW). I made my own web page on that first day and I watched the world wide web grow exponentially across the research 18 https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/ oi/authority.20110803124909395 community, and in the following months explode into mainstream life. 19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infoseek 20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler 21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycos 22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excite 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_ browser) 23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) 24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotBot

8 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world

AltaVista and HotBot were my go-to search web from people’s phones, emails, social engines which I became expert at using — and media accounts, public information, credit then there was that day, I was told about card records — a clever institution’s abil- Google in 1998, while on an observing run ity to understand how individuals tick and in Hawaii — it was so much better than eve- manipulate people en masse should not be rything else, and the rest is history … underestimated. Google was very good because it found In this regime, what is a fact? What what I wanted — and indeed it has contin- is the news? What is truth? Facts and ued to deliver on that promise using more news — which we used to take for granted and more clever algorithms in the 22 years from what was in the encyclopædia or in a since I first used it. But there is a prob- decent newspaper — were actually carefully lem — what if I have a prior belief on let’s curated by our academics and free press. All say, climate change … of the ambiguities were carefully sorted out These search engines help me sift through by highly trained experts largely behind the the internet and find the information I want. scenes of the average citizen. So if I believe climate change will boil the And how does democracy work when oceans this century, or that climate change there is no longer an agreed set of facts or is a fabrication of the deep state to enslave news? Where intentionally deceptive infor- humanity — I will be preferentially con- mation is rampant, and where we come nected to that information that help con- into contact with polarising material via firm my prior belief. Even if the search multiple streams every day. And how does engine is made to be completely agnostic, democracy defend itself against totalitarian most people’s brains will select and connect states where information, instead of being to the information they already believe. And allowed to run rampant as part of personal the world-wide-web allows anyone to put freedom, is carefully controlled and used up anything they believe or want to believe. to control people to the states’ desires? My The curation of information by experts — as observation is, not very well … old as humanity itself — has been upended. And this is the world I saw as 2019 fin- But it gets worse! Imagine you want ished. The COVID-19 pandemic, for all the to convince people to your way of think- death, pain, and disruption it is causing, ing — why not flood their world with your perhaps provides the opportunity to reclaim, story, even if not exactly true. Or why not at least partially, the ascendancy of truth, be cleverer, and nudge people slowly but knowledge, expertise — of course, if we do surely — moving their point of view by not descend into anarchy first. tailoring the information they receive over Why do I say this? In 2020, expertise and time. Behaviour psychology and economics knowledge have showed their strength in a works! Perhaps a bit too well. way that the tools of misinformation and And what if you want to create discord disinformation cannot compete, and where in your enemy — flood their information those who are in power, and uninformed, channels with polarising information about have been left wanting, and unfortunately other people in their society. And with more with tragic consequences in many cases. and more information aggregated on the

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Here in Australia we did not listen to the over “what’s good for our nation” approach advice of fire experts last year around the to business as usual. coming fire season and prepare as we should So we have a chance, now, for our politi- have. Now, there is only so much one can do cal leaders of all sides — federal, states and in a year like this one. But we could have territories — to undertake a course correc- done more, and less destruction would have tion for our democracy. But there are some resulted, and that is something that there is key ingredients. a consensus view of in the community, that First of all, we need a commitment by could not be plastered over with spin and political leaders that winning the next elec- misinformation. tion is secondary to what is right for the But in the same vein, Australia has largely nation. And that means acknowledging listened to its health experts, and we find appropriate evidence when making deci- ourselves in a state that is much better than sions, even if political compromise is nec- most of the world in dealing with COVID- essary. And when decisions are changed to 19 — although I note it is a long journey improve the situation based on evidence, we ahead. And I know there will be cynics out need to applaud these decisions, rather than there on many sides, but from the first deci- berating them as a sign of weakness in our sion to close the border, to a moderately leaders. We, as leaders in the community, hard lock down, to our current re-open- need to stand up for good behaviour and ings, and to our economic response — the decision making of our politicians, even if Prime Minister has listened consistently to we disagree with their ultimate choices. the expertise of the Chief Medical Officer Education is the foundation of successful (CMO) and the Secretary of Treasury. His nations. We need to take a fresh look at our popularity has soared, and Australia has kindergarten to year-12 education system benefited by being in a much better state and ask if we want a system that increasingly than most other places. I have been care- separates people into different schools based ful throughout the pandemic to listen to on their culture or socio-economic status. the experts, and not become an arm-chair Where I grew up, we all went to the same epidemiologist. Although I will say I still do school — rich kids, poor kids, black kids, ask them lots of questions. white kids, Muslims, Catholics, protestants, It turns out not taking expert advice can and atheists, immigrants, indigenous … you really do real harm. We only have to look at name it. And that was good for me — it was my homeland of the United States and [as of good for everyone … Going to school is not 6 June] the 130,000 people and counting who just about scholarly learning, it is also a time have died there, to see how big a difference to build up a shared value set within the it can make. And seeing the effect of igno- community. We need to ensure our nation rance is making believers — at least tempo- grows with a more universal set of princi- rarily — out of voters. In our democracies ples, rather than one where the identity of we must find a way to support evidence- the country fragments into multiple value informed decision making of our politicians, sets, and, in turn, leads to multiple conflict- and not re-normalise the spin, hyperbole, ing truths. and the “whatever it takes to get elected”

10 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world

Education is the great equaliser. And have to be highly integrated and invested while I can appreciate the efforts to equalise in TAFE for this to work. And it has to funding based on need as an improvement cover a vast range of employments, from of the current system, I think it is as true as basic training all the way up to highly skilled in 1954 when the Supreme Court of the US technical skills — and it needs to be open ruled unanimously that “separate education for people for their entire lives. That is how facilities are inherently unequal.” to remain relevant and productive in the My views here are not main-stream Aus- modern world. tralian on this point — and I don’t blame And for universities, let’s start by making any parent for wanting to do what they sure our students and their education are think is best for their child. But supporting outstanding. I’d like to be able to spend a individual parents to do what they think bit more money on our students actually. is best for their child has societal conse- Right now for example, for one of my Law quences. And these consequences are now students may well have come from a private amplifying. For a successful and prosperous Sydney school where last year their fees were Australian democracy, we need a highly edu- $38,000 and the government topped it up cated population, with a shared set of values, with an additional $3,800. For me to educate that creates a level playing field so that the these same students, a year later — and, may talents of the nation can most appropriately I add, support a Law faculty in the world be nurtured. The current system is under- top-20 — I get $11,000 from the student, performing on multiple fronts. and $2,160 from the government. But even The Higher Education sector has been if you are from, for example, Queanbeyan hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, and we High, the total support per student there is have a chance to reset the status quo and in excess of $20,000 — still more than 50 per make sure our system serves the Australia cent of what a university gets. In principle, of the future — rather than be a patchwork I could use my international student fees of ideas quilted together from the past. to help fund the education program (and I think we need to think hard about what I do — as I do not cover my costs educat- we want out of our TAFE and university ing my Law students), but I think the hal- sector. For me, it is making sure that every cyon days where international student fees Australian has access to higher education fixed deficiencies in our university funding throughout their working lives that enables system are largely over. And don’t even get them to be productive, and, taken together, me started on how this impacts the Aus- gives Australia one of the world’s most pro- tralian research endeavour. But that is for ductive workforces. This system needs to another talk … provide the foundational education that The globalised world will be forever underpins a life’s work, as well as the spe- changed in the post COVID-19 world. It cific skills that will need to be continuously will be a long time before nation states will updated across someone’s working life. So allow themselves to be so dependent on the this means getting our TAFE system up world outside their borders. For Australia, and first rate — let’s look to Switzerland for as a highly open economy, this will have inspiration. But, also, Australian business profound consequences on what we need

11 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world to do next. But we are going to need to be dergarten onwards — not just what the facts more self-reliant — and I think that means are — but also how to learn how to decide if protecting our democracy and its underpin- something should be believed, and making ning institutions. it a personal responsibility to not be fooled At the beginning of the year, The ANU- by misinformation. Poll asked Australians about their level of In the post-truth and post-COVID world. trust in a whole range of groups and organi- I see three paths for nations. sations. Universities and schools were at the One where the citizens of a nation get a top of the level of trust, but at the bottom more and more fractured set of information, was the press, banks, and politicians. where prosperity plummets and chaos rises, A free and trusted press is a critical part and where local bullies oversee an increas- of a successful democracy. The press are ingly dysfunctional world. Let us call this cornerstones of reporting news and report- the Mad Max Path25. ing information in real time. And if we are My second path is where the citizens get going to sensibly use evidence in a post- a more and more controlled set of informa- truth and post-COVID world, we need to tion. Where the truth is coherently manu- sort out the press. factured to manipulate the majority of the If only 20 per cent of the country trusts citizenry and bring harmony to the popula- the press, it is no wonder we are in a post- tion. Outliers are dealt with in a way that truth world. To make matters worse, the might seem unseemly to us, but prosperity disruption of the business model of adver- increases, albeit more and more slowly over tising by Google and other service provid- time under the careful control of the centre. ers on the internet has killed the financial Let’s call this the 1984 Path26 (noting the viability of most people’s sources of news. citizens live in the superstate of Oceania in But there are successes in the disruption. this future) … The Economist, the New York Times and My third path — not surprisingly my Washington Post — who go to huge global favourite — is where citizens access and use markets — represent the high quality that more and more accurate information over people are prepared to pay for. What is time. A vibrant democracy flourishes, pros- still unclear is how to get something that perity increases as the citizenry take risks, will serve everyone appropriately. Ideally, make mistakes, but learn more and more as people will pay for quality content, but why they bumble along. But, they get where they do so, when you can read and hear what you need to go, a better place not pre-specified, believe on the internet, for free? in the end. Let’s call this The Dish Path27. I fear we may need more regulation. Per- If we are going to shoot for the Moon haps where the word “news” is reserved for and take the Dish Path, we need an edu- a certain standard of journalism. A strong cation system that enables all of our chil- public broadcaster is another approach. But how do we get people to avoid fake news? I 25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max think it all comes down to education around how to interrogate information. It needs to 26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty- Four be embedded in our curriculum from kin- 27 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dish

12 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Schmidt — Evidence and education in a post-truth and post-COVID world dren, regardless of their background, to news with a high degree of fidelity and rigor, interrogate information. We need a Higher and we need a political class who are pre- Education sector to educate and train its pared to use evidence and information to students to the best of their ability in skills, do what is right for Australia. And if they knowledge, and problem solving. We need don’t, the population will have the informa- a university and research sector that cre- tion and nous to hold them accountable. A ates new knowledge from which ideas that truly virtuous cycle. improve life will flow. We need a trusted Thank you everyone, I hope my thoughts media sector that reports information and tonight are provocative.

13 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 14–23. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010014-10

Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

Graham A. Bell Conjoint Associate Professor of Physiology (Retired), School of Medical Science, UNSW Sydney Email: [email protected]

Abstract An easily-constructed and self-administered olfactory acuity test for pre-symptomatic indication of infection by COVID-19 is described. This paper offers a simple test of smell threshold, which can be made and conducted at home and re-tested on oneself or others sharing isolation, and producing numerical data to indicate whether smell ability has decreased. During the COVID-19 pandemic, and until a vaccine is developed and available, becoming aware immediately of a loss of the important chemical sense, olfaction, can signal sufficient concern in individuals to self-isolate for the requisite period. The risk of COVID-19 spreading through communities can be reduced by promoting smell awareness by everyone, using simple, inexpensive measures, suggested in this paper.

Introduction announcement has been a stream of reports ecent clinical reports indicate that a by medical practitioners emphasising the Rhigh proportion of COVID-19 patients prevalence and importance of the symp- experience smell loss (anosmia), partial smell tom occurring often before any other (Lutz, loss (hyposmia) and/or taste loss (dysgeusia) 2020, Hopkins and Kumar, 2020; Miller et al, (Bagheri, et al., 2020; Carney, 2020; Meixner, 2020). Data from recently published surveys 2020; Philpott, 2020; Roberts, 2020). Despite of large numbers of people, showed that che- these reports being mainly anecdotal, sup- mosensory disturbance of olfaction (smell), port for a call for anosmia to be treated as gustation (taste) and chemesthesis (cooling a symptom of COVID-19 grew in the early or burning sensations carried by the trigem- months of the pandemic (O’Donovan et al., inal nerve), without blockage of the nasal 2020, Gane et al., 2020). passages, is common in at least two thirds of Ear, nose and throat physicians in the UK, people testing positive for the virus (Menni USA and elsewhere were very concerned by et al., 2020; Parma et al., 2020). These find- medical reports that smell loss and result- ings render obsolete the earlier assertions by ant dysgeusia are symptoms of COVID-19 the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) infection, heralding important potential for that loss of smell or taste is a not a symptom reducing spread of the virus and early test- of COVID-19 (Ault, 2020; Meixner, 2020) ing of those not showing other symptoms or is a “less common” COVID-19 symptom (Lewin, 2020; AAO-HNS, 2020). (Sae, 2020). After a relatively long period New loss of smell or taste has become an of ignoring the chemical senses, the U.K. officially recognised symptom of COVID- health authorities announced acceptance 19 infection by the U.S. Centers for Disease of loss of smell or taste as a “key symptom” Control and Prevention (CDC) (Fritz et al., (Boyle, 2020; Bundock, 2020). In contrast, 2020; Rashid, 2020). Supporting the CDC Australia changed minimally, listing loss of smell or taste as “less common”.

14 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

Of crucial importance for managing the This paper offers a simple test of smell COVID-19 pandemic is the possibility that threshold, which can be made and con- smell loss can begin as the only symptom ducted at home and retested on oneself in a person who is otherwise well (Carney, or others sharing isolation, and producing 2020). That person might be an unaware car- numerical data to indicate whether smell rier and potential spreader of the virus. By ability has decreased. detecting the loss of smell acuity as early as possible, society is better armed to defeat How can anosmia be measured? the virus. Several rough screening methods are avail- The significant change in official -posi able for people wanting to self-monitor for tion of health authorities in the U.S.A. and changes in smell ability: U.K. should go some way to reducing cases • Introspection: Sniff any household item or going undiagnosed and spreading the virus plant part that you know has an odour. Is in people with no other symptom but loss of your expectation met? If not, try another chemical sensory perception (Boseley, 2020; and another. This can be repeated at inter- Fahey, 2020). vals, say at mealtimes or while gardening. A loss of smell sense often accompanies If the items are not delivering their usual nasal congestion with common colds and smell experience (orthonasal olfaction), influenza, and can have several other causes, there is reason to be concerned: contact including hay fever, sinusitis and head injury. your medical professional and request a Sudden or unexpected smell loss, particu- COVID-19 test. larly in the absence of other symptoms such as raised temperature and cough, should be • Perform the “jelly-bean test”: Hold your nose taken seriously by both citizens in commu- and pop a jelly bean (or small piece of nities at risk, and by clinicians. food or candy) into your mouth. With the A symptom of COVID-19, anosmia, offers nose blocked, all you should perceive is the opportunity for easy self-monitoring by sweetness and perhaps some sourness or people currently self-isolating or “locked saltiness. Release the nose and immedi- down.” ately the flavour (orange, raspberry, etc) is Remote physical examination is now a perceptible (retronasal olfaction contrib- common feature in the medical approach uting to flavour perception). This test can to the COVID-19 pandemic and it is recom- be repeated at intervals to monitor onset mended that patients take readings from of anosmia. If the return of flavour is not instruments they have at home, including experienced, then there is reason to be temperature, pulse, and blood pressure concerned: contact your medical profes- (Greenhalgh et al., 2020). These authors also sional and request a COVID-19 test. note that loss of appetite (indicating possi- Early onset of anosmia can also be moni- ble dysgeusia) occurs in many patients and tored to improve early detection of viral that anosmia is widely reported anecdotally infection. Fundamental ability to detect as a common and early symptom of COVID- a very faint odour can be determined as a 19 infection. Testing for smell loss can be change in smell detection threshold. This added to remote physical examination by provides a more sensitive method than means described here. introspective sniffing or the jelly bean test.

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There are two available test kits for measur- with clinical conditions. The two forms of ing smell threshold used by clinicians: the test sell for €334 and €471 respectively. 1. An olfactory threshold test developed by While useful, these tests are intended for Sensonics International (Snap & Sniff®): clinicians. Clearly, what is needed in the It involves a set of 20 tubes (“wands”) con- COVID-19 crisis is an inexpensive, easily taining systematically diluted odorants, constructed, self-administered smell detec- including tubes with no odour, such that a tion threshold test which would provide person’s odour detection threshold may be numerical information over repeated tests, determined as a numerical score based on and thereby show up a sudden or emerging the point in the dilution series at which pre-clinical onset of anosmia. Such a test is a smell cannot be detected. This kit cur- described here and is affordable for most rently sells for US$1259. people. 2. The “Sniffin’ Sticks” olfactory threshold The “Ozzie” smell detection test available from Burghardt, Wedel, Germany: It also involves a set of pen- threshold test like odour dispensers containing a sys- Aim of the test tematic dilution series of either of two odorants: n-Butanol and 2-Phenylethanol The test intends to measure an individual’s (Hummel, et al., 1997). Numerical scores olfactory threshold, and whether it is chang- are obtained and compared with data ing, by having the person sniff a series of obtained from heathy people and those odours decreasing in perceived intensity, by

Figure 1: Examples of the test materials with sample jars (12 needed) and items that could be used to make the primary test solution (rose water, orange blossom water, lemon or lime rind using the grater shown).

16 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19 half in each sample, to zero (no odour). It is In order to make this test easy to con- not intended to give a comparison against struct and self-administer, while remain- a population norm. Why? Chemical sen- ing valid, strict methodologies used in sory science has shown that there is great sensory psychophysics can be overlooked. variation (orders of magnitude differences) What is crucial is for you to find a numeri- within individuals for a specific odour mole- cal value for your detection threshold that cule and between species of molecules. What you can then assess. What is required is that is intended here is to measure one person’s an unskilled person can make and obtain threshold for a random smelly molecule and scores for themselves to tell if their ability see if that value changes upon retest. Those to smell is changing detrimentally during values, for that person, are important. the COVID-19 crisis.

Jar No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Odorant (mL) 100 50 25 12 6 3 1.5 0.8 0.4 0 0 0 Equivalent to: 32 16 drops drops 8 drops Water (mL) 0 50 75 88 94 97 98.5 99.2 99.6 100 100 100

This test will give better information to • A volumetric jug or measuring flasks for the user than the jelly-bean test or sniff- liquid marked in mL (optional) ing random items in the house or garden • An eye dropper (optional) because a threshold test addresses basic • Another jug for filling the jars with water sensory sensitivity in numerical terms. The value of this in-home test, is to find smell loss • A marker pen that can write on glass as soon as it starts to happen, under COVID- • A ruler 19 social distancing and isolation, so that • Approx. 200 mL of the primary odour solu- further action to prevent COVID-19 spread tion. This should be a clear water-soluble and its consequences can follow. liquid which has a medium-strength, rec- ognisable odour. In the example described Test materials here, a 200 mL bottle of Rose Water was • 12 small jars or bottles. They should have obtained from the family pantry. Other lids, wide mouths, be clean and dry and flavour essences, or herbal infusions, could be identical in size and appearance. In be made up in a water solution as the pri- the example described here, the jars mary solution. Avoid any substance with (150mL) were bought from a homewares a strong pungent “smell” such as alcohol, supply store (“two dollar” shop) and cost chilli, peppermint, oil or bleach. On no AUD$1.50 (approx. US$0.80 or one €) a account must this, or any other sniff piece. You can use the small jars (iden- sample be sipped or drunk. Do not use tical ones) you have collected in normal anything poisonous, corrosive or flam- kitchen activity.

17 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

mable. Your choice of primary odour is Making the serial dilution of odorants ideally of something pleasant smelling, Write the numbers 1 to 12 on the bottom of lacking in pungency (sting) and mildly each jar and place them in order on the table. intense in its undiluted form. The jars must be large enough to take the • Two sheets of kitchen paper towel liquids and leave a couple of centimetres • Pencil and paper for recording results for the headspace (the gap between the lid and the liquid) which will contain smelly molecules released by the liquid.

Figure 2: Jars 1 to 12 filled with a dilution series of odorant solution — in this example, rose water.

Fill the 12 jars with the primary odor- the top (maximum) level of the final solu- ant solution and/or clean water jars using tion for each jar. Simply choose the level the measuring jug/flask and eye-dropper, as that suits your jar and amount of primary shown in the following table (based on a solution available. The top level does not total liquid of 100 mL/jar): have to represent an exact volume, but all bottles should have the same top level. Pen-and-ruler method Leave a centimetre or two for the headspace No volumetric measurement tools will be between the top level and the lid. needed: The headspace is important because you Mark the glass with the marker pen to will be sniffing the molecules in the headspace. show where to fill them with odorant solu- There will be four jars (Numbers 1, 10, 11 tion and water. Using the black pen, mark and 12) with only the top-level mark. Set the sides of the jars with a dot to indicate these aside once the top level is marked onto them.

18 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

Figure 3: The 12 bottles, shuffled and ready to begin the test. The paper towel behind the jars shows where to place the jars after judging them.

The other jars will have a second (dilu- perature. These are your blank controls. If tion) mark denoting the fraction of primary you can smell something in these, the jar is odour solution they will need. The fraction not clean, or the water is not pure. reduces by half with each successive jar. Filling the jars: Next, for Jar 1, fill it to That is, after Jar 1, each successive jar, from the top level with your strongest odorant 2 to 9 will have half the amount of primary (the primary odour solution). Then add half odour solution of the preceding jar. So, Jar that amount of primary solution to the next 2 will have a second mark showing half the jar (No 2), reducing by half the amount for amount of Jar 1; Jar 3 will have a mark show- each successive jar (jars 2,3,4 … 9). At the ing half that of Jar 2, Jar 4, half that of Jar 3, higher jar numbers (7, 8, 9), estimate the and so on to Jar 9. Use the ruler to help set number of drops to be added: halving the these dilution marks. drops as the jar number becomes higher. If The marks for Jars 7, 8 and 9 will be so you estimate that Jar 6 received 20 drops of close to the bottom of the jar that exactness primary solution, then deliver 10 drops to will be difficult. This doesn’t matter greatly. Jar 7, 5 drops to Jar 8 and 2 drops to Jar 9. What does matter is to halve the amount of Use an eye-dropper or carefully tilt and pour primary odorant going into each jar as you drops from the primary solution container. progress down the series. When jars 1 to 9 have their sample Jars 10, 11 and 12 will have only the top amounts in them, add clean water to bring level indicated and these will be filled to the solution in each up to the top level. that level with clean water at room tem-

19 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

Figure 4: Test subject performing the olfactory threshold detection test (“Ozzie”).

Whichever method you have used, all Administering the test jars should now look identical. Rub off the Take the jars one at a time (start with any lower level dots to remove clues to what the jar) and carefully open it and sniff the head- jar contains. Put a few marks and squig- space. Do not dip your nose into the solution. gles around the numbers under the jars Close the lid and put the jar on the sheet to disguise the identity of the jar (if vis- marked SMELL or NO SMELL according to ible through the glass when sniffing). The your smell judgement of whether you could number must still be easy to read when the smell anything or not. Pause for 15 to 20 sec- jar is inverted (with lid on). Do not write onds before sniffing the next jar. Continue the jar numbers on the wall or lid of the jar. until all jars have either been judged and On one sheet of the paper towel, write assigned to the SMELL group or the NO “SMELL” and on the other sheet, “NO SMELL group. The test is now complete. SMELL” (Fig.3). Upon completion of the test, a result might Lids should all be closed on the jars. Thor- look like this, for example: oughly clean up any odorant spill from the • SMELL: Jars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 table and sides and lids of the jars. (If you are careful there will have been no spillage). • NO SMELL: Jars 9, 10, 11, 12 Wash and dry your hands. Note the highest number on the bottom of Shuffle the jars, into a random bunch, in the jar in the SMELL group (e.g. 8) and the front of you on the table. lowest number in the NO SMELL group The dilution series is now ready for test- (e.g. 9). ing.

20 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

In this example, the threshold lies • A single-digit change may be inconsequen- between 8 and 9. Score yourself as having tial (measurement error) but a change in a detection threshold between the two: 8.5. the direction of a higher score of two or Make a note of this result and the time and more digits is indicative of a detrimental date of testing. change. Retest twice after intervals of two or three hours to confirm or refute the Interpretation of results “change” interpretation. In this example, 8.5 is the numerical value of your smell detection threshold. Conclusion If you are becoming anosmic, this number will The current status of concern by medical sci- increase upon retest (or the liquids are losing entists, about the role of the chemical senses their smell — see further detail below). In in the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforces the healthy people with normal olfactory acuity need for authorities as well as individuals to there should be no change in threshold score. promote and practice conscious awareness If you find you have all the bottles in the of smell and taste, in everyday life. Although NO SMELL group, it suggests either that the sense of smell plays an important part in you didn’t use an actual smell as a primary our lives, we tend to ignore it. This means sample or you (already) have anosmia. If that we can be unaware of onset of the you think that your condition has come on COVID-19 symptom, new loss of smell or recently and cannot be explained by nasal taste, and crucially, our being contagious congestion or other causes, and you decide with it, until it is too late and the virus has on the anosmia interpretation, first confirm been spread into the community. The risk of your interpretation with the jelly-bean test COVID-19 spreading through communities (see above), then consult your health profes- can be reduced by promoting smell aware- sional for a COVID-19 test. ness by everyone, using simple, inexpensive measures, suggested in this paper. Retesting If you are losing/have lost your sense The jars can stand at room temperature for of smell as determined by change in smell two or three hours. threshold, consult your doctor/health ser- Shuffle the jars and retest yourself after vice for a COVID-19 test. a chosen interval. If you have used this test and found your- Prolonged use of the test for retesting self to be anosmic, and you test positive to up to 7 days: Put the jars on a small tray COVID-19, or wish to communicate with (e.g. a baking dish) and place them in your the author, or share your experiences with refrigerator (not in the freezer). If you wish the test and COVID-19, please post a com- to monitor for longer than seven days, make ment to the Ozzie Smell Test Group on Face- up a fresh set of liquids. book. For retesting (say twice daily) remove the set of jars and allow to stand (lids on) for Disclaimer an hour to reach room temperature. Note The “Ozzie” test is free for use by all mem- your scores and any change between them. bers of the global public currently con- If you find the scores have changed: cerned about their health in the time of

21 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19 the COVID-19 pandemic. Use of the test uk-coronavirus-tests-advised-for-people- and interpretation of results are undertaken who-lose-taste-or-smell entirely at your own risk. No company or Boyle, D. (2020) “Self-isolate if you lose sense of smell and taste.” The Telegraph, institution associated with the author has May 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ any claim to or responsibility for the test. news/2020/05/18/monday-evening-news- Rights reserved: All rights to the test, its briefing-new-virus-symptoms/ name and the text above are reserved by the Bundock, L. (2020) “Coronavirus: Loss of taste author. and smell added to official symptom list.” Sky News, May 18. https://news.sky.com/ The author story/coronavirus-loss-of-taste-and-smell-to- official-symptom-list-11990305 Graham Bell is a retired Conjoint Associate Carney, S. (2020) “Loss of smell sense first sign Professor of Physiology, School of Medical of COVID-19.” Neuroscience News, https:// Science, University of New South Wales neurosciencenews.com/covid-19-loss- (UNSW), Sydney, Australia 2052. Formerly smell-15964/ Fahey, R. (2020) “Two thirds of coronavirus he was a Research Fellow at The Austral- cases in Britain are undiagnosed because ian National University, and Principal government refuses to recognise symptoms Research Scientist, CSIRO; and Director, like loss of taste or smell, leading Centre for ChemoSensory Research, UNSW. epidemiologist claims.” Mailonline, May He founded E-Nose Pty Ltd., a company 9. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ designing and distributing electronic article-8302467/Two-thirds-coronavirus cases-bri-going-undiagnosed.html odour-measuring devices. Fritz, A., Brice-Saddler, M. and Judkis, M. (2020) “CDC confirms six coronavirus References symptoms showing up in patients over AAO-HNS. (2020) “COVID-19 Anosmia and over.” The Washington Post, April, reporting tool for clinicians.” American 27. https://www.washington-post.com/ Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck health/2020/04/27/six-new-coronavirus- Surgery, https://www.entnet.org/content/ symptoms/ reporting-tool-patients-anosmia-related- Gane, S.B., Kelly, C. and Hopkins, C. (2020). covid-19 “Isolated sudden onset anosmia in COVID- Ault, A. (2020) “Sudden loss of taste and 19 infection. A novel syndrome?” Rhinology smell should be part of COVID-19 screen.” Apr.2, DOI:10.4193/Rhin20.114. Medscape, April 21, 2020. https://www. Greenhalgh, T., Koh, G.C.H., and Car, J. medscape.com/viewarticle/929116 (2020). “COVID-19: A remote assessment in Bagheri, S.H., Asghari, A., Farhadi, M. primary care.” The BMJ 2020:368:m1182. Shamshiri, A.R., Kabir, A., Kamrava, Hopkins, C. and Kumar, N. (2020) “Loss of S.K., Jalessi, M., Mohebbi, A., Alizadeh, smell as marker of COVID-19 infection.” R., Honarmand, A.A., Ghalehbaghi, ENTUK. https://www.entuk.org/sites/default/ B., and Salimi, A. (2020) “Coincidence files/files/Loss%20of%20sense%20of%20 of COVID-19 epidemic and olfactory smell%20as%20marker%20of%20COVID.pdf dysfunction outbreak.” Medrxiv. Hummel, T., Sekinger,B., Wolf, S.R. Pauli, DOI:1101/2020.03.23.20041889. E and Kobal, G. (1997) “‘Sniffin’ Sticks’: Boseley, S. (2020) “Thousands of Covid-19 cases Olfactory performance assessed by the missed due to late warning on smell loss, combined testing of odor identification, say experts.” The Guardian, May 19. https:// odor discrimination and olfactory threshold.” www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/ Chemical Senses, 22, 39-52.

22 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Bell — Olfactory acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19

Lewin, E. (2020) “Push to include anosmia feature of COVID-19?” Oxford COVID-19 as recognised COVID-19 symptom.” Royal Evidence Service, https://www.cebm.net/ Australia College of General Practitioners. covid-19/what-is-the-evidence-for-anosmia- https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/ loss-of-smell-as-a-clinical-feature-of- push-to-include-anosmia-as-recognised- covid-19/ covid-19-sym Parma, V., Ohla, K., Veldhuizen, M.G. et al.1 Lutz, R. (2020) “More evidence backs loss (2020) “More than just smell. COVID-19 is of smell as an early symptom of COVID- associated with severe impairment of smell, 19.” Contagion Live, April, 20. https://www. taste, and chemesthesis.” Global Consortium contagionlive.com/news/more-evidence- for Chemosensory Research (GCCR). backs-loss-of-smell-as-an-early-symptom-of- medRxiv 2020.05.04.20090902; DOI: https:// covid19 doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.04.20090902 Menni, C, Valdes, A.M., Freidin, M.B., Sudre, Philpott, C. (2020) “Coronavirus: loss of C.H., Nguyen, L.H., Drew, D.A., Ganesh, smell and taste reported as early symptoms S., Varsavsky, T., Cardoso, M.J., Moustafa, of COVID-19.” The Conversation. https:// J.S.E.-S., Visconti, A., Hysi, P., Bowyer, theconversation.com/coronavirus-loss-of- R.C.E., Mangino, M., Falchi, M., Wolf, J., smell-and-taste-reported-as-early-symptoms- Ourselin, S., Chan, A.T., Steves, C.J. & of-covid-19-134564 Spector, T.D. (2020). “Real-time tracking of Rashid, A. (2020) “Loss of smell and taste self-reported symptoms to predict potential added to the CDC’s list of COVID-19 COVID-19.” Nature Medicine. https://doi. symptoms.” Xtalks, April 24. https://xtalks. org/10.1038/s41591-020-0916-2 com/loss-of-smell-or-taste-added-to-the- Meixner, S. (2020) “Should a loss of smell and cdcs-list-of-covid-19-symptoms-2222/ taste be added to Australia’s recognised Roberts, M. (2020) “Coronavirus: Are loss of coronavirus symptoms?” ABC News. smell and taste key symptoms?” BBC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/ https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52111606 coronavirus-covid-19-loss-of-taste-smell- Saey, T.H. (2020) “Loss of smell and taste sense-testing-criteria/12115022 may actually be one of the clearest signs of Miller, C., Bowden, J., and Dono, J. (2020) COVID-19.” Science News, May 11. https:// “What is the prevalence, positive predictive www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus- value, negative predictive value, sensitivity covid-19-symptoms-signs-loss-smell-taste and specificity of anosmia in the diagnosis Sensonics International (2020) https:// of COVID-19?” COVID-19 Evidence Update sensonics.com/smell-identification-test- from SAHMRI, Health Translation SA and the international-versions-available.html Commission of Excellence and Innovation in Health, Government of South Australia. 2nd Ed., 1 See the publication for the full list of 114 authors. May, 4. [Ed.] O’Donovan, J., Tanveer, S., Jones, N., Hopkins, C., Senior, B. A., Wise, S.K., Brassey, J. and Greenhalgh, T. (2020) “What is the evidence for anosmia (loss of smell) as a clinical

23 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 24–29. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010024-06

The magic of solo violin

David Hush Email: [email protected]

Abstract J.S. Bach’s solo violin works are widely regarded as representing one of the most sublime levels of musical thought in the entire Western canon. 2020 marks the 300th anniversary of these influential works. Interspersed with live performances of two complete works for the violin, we outline the historical reasons that the unaccompanied violin recital today is more the exception than the rule, and explore ways composers who preceded Bach influenced his music, and how Bach, in turn, influenced later composers.

Introduction1 in the entire Western canon. When a violin- f I were to hazard a guess about how many ist makes a recording of these works, it is Ipeople in this room have ever attended an ordeal by fire, because he or she knows a solo piano recital, I would be reasonably that they will be compared to the greatest confident in saying no fewer than seventy- violinists in the history of recorded sound. five per cent. If asked to make a similar guess It is telling that the three premier violinists about how many of us here tonight have ever of the last century — Heifetz, Arthur Gru- attended a solo violin recital — and by this I miaux and Nathan Milstein — all recorded mean a complete recital of unaccompanied these pieces. violin, without piano — I would say no more The crucial point is that after the time of than ten per cent. Bach, the solo violin genre went out of fash- Why is the solo violin recital today so ion. This continues to be a source of major much more the exception than the rule? The regret among violinists. Imagine how much cornerstone of the solo violin repertory are richer the world would be if there were an the six solo violin sonatas and partitas that entire cycle of solo violin pieces courtesy Bach wrote in 1720 when he was in Köthen. of Mozart. During this time Bach was director of music So when we come to the classical era, to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. In Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms all wrote this period, that begins in 1717 and ends in for the violin, but only with accompaniment, 1723, Bach concentrated primarily on cham- either keyboard in the case of sonatas, or ber music. The Brandenburg Concertos date orchestra in the context of concertos. It is from this time. not until the romantic era that the genre of The six pieces for solo violin represent one unaccompanied violin returns. The major of the most sublime levels of musical thought figure from this period is Paganini. The solo violin caprices of Paganini in many ways constitute the composer violin- 1 This talk and these performances (including the ist’s answer to the Transcendental Études of world premiere of David Hush’s Violin Partita) Franz Liszt. Each collection of pieces was occurred at the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, on 27 February 2020. written by a composer who was an una-

24 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Hush — The magic of solo violin bashed virtuoso of his day, and both collec- While the solo violin partitas are pro- tions are designed to show off the technical foundly different from the sonatas, one vital prowess of their respective instruments. In trait shared by all six pieces is the technique the twentieth century, we see composers of of implied harmony. Regardless of whether major stature writing for unaccompanied Bach asks the violinist to play a four-note violin. Ysaÿe, Bartók and Hindemith are chord or a single melody, he is always using cases in point. the violin to project a multi-voiced texture. I am pleased to report that as I speak, the It is telling that on the cover page of Bach’s solo violin genre is alive and well. Com- original manuscript he appended the words posers all over the globe are writing for it. senza basso accompagnato to the title. This is While the number of solo violin pieces will Italian for “without bass accompaniment.” always be eclipsed by the range of pieces In Bach’s day there was a time-honoured written for the piano, it is heartening to tradition of compositions for a single observe that many composers are writing melodic line and a bass or basso continuo. for this idiom and are showing no signs of The harpsichordist would play the notated slowing down. bass part with his left hand complemented It is somewhat misleading to speak of by chords in the right hand. The figured bass Bach’s six works for solo violin as a single would indicate how the chords in the right collection, for in reality they comprise two hand are voiced. A case in point is Bach’s cycles, namely, three sonatas and three Sonata for Flute and Continuo in E minor, partitas. The three sonatas all adhere to the BWV 1034. same formal design. In the first movement, But with the solo violin works, Bach went while the music is strictly notated, it has out of his way to emphasise a point that the aura of an improvisation. The second was far from merely rhetorical — namely, movement always consists of a fugue. The that his compositions for unaccompanied third movement is slow and more relaxed violin were fully-fledged pieces in their than the formidable fugue that preceded own right requiring no fleshing-out of the it. The final movement always consists of a harmony on a keyboard. In short, his solo fast movement. violin works are self-sufficient: a veritable While the three sonatas all adhere to the law unto themselves. same formal design, I do not for a minute While the Viennese music theorist Hein- wish to suggest they sound alike. On the rich Schenker has offered valuable insights contrary, it is a testament of Bach’s supreme into Bach’s writing for solo violin, it was genius that, similarities in formal design not until 1999 that the first book on the notwithstanding, he contrived to invent subject appeared: Bach’s Works for Solo Violin: quite different works. Style, Structure, Performance, by Joel Lester. The three solo violin partitas consist of a As a respected theorist and accomplished succession of dance movements. The dances violinist, Lester was ideally placed to write on which the partitas are based come from this book. It offers a goldmine of informa- all over Europe. For example, while the tion about Bach’s technique of implied har- sarabande hails from Spain, the gigue is of mony. One thing is certain. In applying this Irish origin. No two partitas offer exactly technique, Bach drew upon the solo violin the same succession of movement types. compositions of his predecessors. In short, he did not invent the technique. Rather, he

25 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Hush — The magic of solo violin absorbed it and applied it with stupendous example of this tonight in the third move- results. In a similar way, he absorbed the ment of Bach’s First Sonata. basic principles underlying the instrumental Music from Bach’s era is renowned for the concertos of the Italian school epitomised use of melodic sequences. To give an exam- by Antonio Vivaldi and drew on these prin- ple: a violinist will play a motive. We then ciples with amazing results. hear the same motive repeated at a higher Johann Paul von Westhoff was a violinist pitch level. After that, the motive may be and composer born in Dresden in 1656. He repeated a second time at a higher pitch wrote six partitas for solo violin, published level. The final result is the same motive in 1696. It is possible that von Westhoff met moving up by step. This is known as an Bach in Weimar in 1703. Without a doubt, ascending sequence. there is a discernible connection between In Bach’s solo violin works, the com- von Westhoff’s writing for solo violin and poser projects implied harmony by writing Bach’s. The second movement of von West- a single line using a sequence of ascending hoff’s First Partita in A minor almost cer- or descending motives. We will hear a highly tainly influenced Bach in writing the first developed example tonight in the final movement of his Second Partita. movement of the Bach composition. In that The Austrian violinist and composer movement, we shall also hear sequences of Johann Joseph Vilsmayr was born in 1663. arpeggios — a highly effective way of imply- He wrote six partitas for solo violin, pub- ing more than one voice. lished in 1715. The Prelude of his Fifth Par- There is no doubt that the use of chords tita in G minor may well have influenced contributes significantly to implied - har Bach in writing the Chaconne of his Second mony. Partita. While the violin can produce chords of There is an important distinction between up to four notes, it is not possible to attack the solo violin works of Bach’s predecessors the notes in a chord at the same time unless and contemporaries on the one hand and it is a two-note chord comprising notes on those written by Bach himself on the other. adjacent strings. The larger chords can be The works of Bach’s predecessors and con- executed only by moving the bow across temporaries are generally played today only the strings. by baroque specialists on historical instru- I have already mentioned that the second ments, whereas the solo works of Bach have movement of each of Bach’s solo sonatas been championed by the greatest violinists consists of a fugue. How is it remotely pos- of the twentieth century continuing well sible to write a fugue for a single stringed into this century, on modern instruments, instrument? in addition to baroque specialists. Many of us have heard choral fugues Sometimes, Bach may use register to dis- written by Bach comprising free flowing tinguish different voices — for example, a polyphony at a fast tempo. A magnificent melody in the upper register is answered by example from the Mass in B Minor is the a tune in the lower register, thus setting in last chorus of the Gloria, titled: Cum sancto motion a dialogue of voices. We will hear an spiritu in gloria Dei patris (“With the Holy Ghost in the glory of God the father.”) Great

26 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Hush — The magic of solo violin genius though he was, Bach knew that he absorb the lesson of implied harmony from could never write for a single violin like this. the solo violin works of Bach. Earlier on, I To begin with, the fugues of the solo drew a comparison between Paganini and violin sonatas each suggest a medium or Liszt. As it happened, Liszt made arrange- medium/fast tempo, never a very fast one. ments of no fewer than five of Paganini’s Bach uses chords to punctuate, or sound caprices for the piano. against, a single melodic line. If this tech- Henryk Wieniawski was born in Lublin nique sounds simple, each specific applica- in 1835 and died in 1880. Since he was born tion requires a first-rate musical mind to five years before Paganini died, the two bring it off. composers cannot be said to belong to the Bach’s fugues for solo violin are remark- same generation. However, there is no doubt able feats of technique in their own right. that the younger composer followed in They are so startling as to require many Paganini’s wake. His principal contribution hearings in order to absorb the magnitude to the realm of solo violin writing is a work of his accomplishment. The word “star- called L’École Moderne (The Modern School): tling" is apposite since it reflects perhaps Ten Études-Caprices. As is the case with Paga- the most admirable trait of his solo violin nani’s caprices, each individual piece poses a works — namely, that despite being pre- formidable challenge to the violinist’s skill. cisely three hundred years old, they have On listening to the whole collection I do not aged not one iota — on the contrary, in the have a sense of a profound use of implied hands of a skilled player they sound as if harmony. The main exception appears to be they could have been written only yesterday. the sixth caprice, titled “Prelude.” Here one has a definite sense of polyphony in the first Live performance: J.S. Bach Solo Violin section, along with the written-out reprise Sonata No. 1 in G minor BWV 1001 of that section. Henri Vieuxtemps was born in Belgium in 1820. In being only fifteen years older than Wieniawski, he belonged to the same generation. An early work, Six Concert Etudes, Opus 16, written when the composer was twenty-five, follows in the romantic wake https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFFw of Paganini. Just another composer writing CGj2FIZzj5vt2VO-rEV_69FGwqJq in the romantic tradition? Well, not quite. A Niccolo Paganini was born in Genoa in 1782. much later work, Six Morceaux or Six Pieces, He was a virtuoso violinist of great renown. Opus 55, was published posthumously. These His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin were written very special pieces are much closer to the between 1802 and 1817. They take the form Bach tradition than to the romantic gen- of etudes, with each individual piece calling eration to which Vieuxtemps belonged. for a specific skill. Without a doubt, a for- The final piece is called Introduction and midable technique is required to play these Fugue, and is arguably the most transpar- pieces convincingly. The general consensus ently Bach-like, as the title may suggest. among musicians is that Paganini did not

27 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Hush — The magic of solo violin

The Belgian violinist and composer three sonatas for solo violin. His first sonata Eugène Ysaÿe was born in Liège in 1858. is in G minor and was completed in 1918. His principal creative legacy is a set of six Six years later, in 1924, he wrote two sona- wonderful sonatas for solo violin, written tas that comprise his Opus 31. A mere glance in 1923. Each sonata is dedicated to a dif- at the score of his Second Sonata tells us that ferent violinist whom the composer knew Hindemith had undergone a big change. To personally. begin with, there is an absence of a key sig- The solo sonatas of Ysaÿe are redolent of nature in each of the five movements. More- the Bach tradition from beginning to end. over, while the first movement starts on the As surely as the solo pieces of Paganini are note A-natural, the final movement ends on primarily monophonic, the sonatas by Ysaÿe the note A-flat. Maybe the composer was are intrinsically polyphonic. His second making a statement here, to the effect of: sonata even goes so far as to open with a “If you are looking for a piece that begins direct quotation from the Prelude of Bach’s and ends in the same key, you won’t find it Third Partita in E Major. However, it should here!.” There is no doubt that Hindemith be stressed that in Ysaÿe's solo works, direct was a learned musician who absorbed Bach’s quotations are the exception rather than the practice of implied harmony into the tem- rule. plate of his considerably modified harmonic If we were to sum up Ysaÿe’s life achieve- idiom. ment in just a few words, it might be that Bartók wrote his Sonata for Solo Violin he succeeded in absorbing Bach into a more in North Carolina in 1944 at the behest of modern sounding harmonic idiom. On the Yehudi Menuhin. It is his only contribution one hand, his sonatas are traditionally tonal to the idiom. The Bartók sonata is steeped since they are written in a specific key. On in the Bach tradition. To begin with, the the other hand, in certain places they reflect four-movement pattern of tempos (slow, the influence of Debussy and the French fast, slow, fast) consciously recalls the same school. For example, the third movement of pattern to be heard in Bach’s solo sonatas. Sonata No. 1 has a delightful passage consist- The first movement of the Bartók is marked ing of perfect 4ths alternating with perfect with the tempo of a chaconne, and opens 5ths. This would have been strictly forbid- with a conscious pastiche of Bach’s harmonic den by Bach. world. The second movement is a fugue When we come to the solo violin pieces bearing some of the characteristics of the of Bartók and Hindemith, it is not surpris- fugues in Bach’s solo sonatas. Strictly speaking that their sound is even more modern. ing, the Bartók second movement is more of While both composers are “tonal” in so far a fugal fantasy than a fugue proper. as they employ pitch centres, there is a ten- There is no doubt that the Bartók sonata dency to access more notes of the chromatic is the best known of solo violin works from scale. the last century, in part due to Menuhin’s While Hindemith was younger than tireless championing and recording of the Bartók, his works for solo violin precede piece. Not all musicians, however, seem to Bartók’s own sonata. Paul Hindemith was be in agreement regarding how innate the born in 1895 in Hanau, a small town in Ger- writing is from a violinistic point of view. many. He died in 1963. Hindemith wrote On the one hand, the piece is playable; on the other hand, the conductor Antal Doráti,

28 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Hush — The magic of solo violin who knew both Bartók and Menuhin per- The new piece could be regarded as a sonally, has called it “a fiendishly difficult prism which refracts different aspects work” (Yatsugafu, 2011, p. 19). Menuhin of East European music, with a leaning himself was convinced that the piece was towards the Jewish. It comprises four move- almost unplayable after looking over the ments. Unlike Bach’s solo partitas, the work manuscript for the first time. I have written does not comprise a succes- It is worth recalling that every composer sion of dance-movements. Instead, I have referred to so far except Bartók was a vio- chosen the term Partita as a generic title for linist. While Bach is remembered primarily a multi-movement composition spanning a as an organist, he was also a highly skilled wide spectrum of emotions and moods. practitioner of the viola in addition to the We will now hear Anna Da Silva Chen violin. play my piece. This will be its first perfor- Looking at the solo violin world today, mance. my impression is one of unqualified diversity, with each composer doing his or her Live performance: Hush Partita for Solo Violin own thing, which in many respects is refreshing. An example of a very captivat- ing piece written by a living composer is the Cadenza for solo violin by the Polish composer Penderecki.2 It was written in 1984. You will find more than one live performance of the piece on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFFw My own Partita for Solo Violin was com- CGj2FIZ6a2tGQzJOorw7mD9JZNv0 missioned especially for this event tonight by the Royal Society of New South Wales. References More by coincidence than by design, the Bach, J.S. (2003) Three Sonatas and three Partitas piece is written in the same key as the Bach for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006, Edited by sonata: G minor. This is a wonderful key for Günter Haußwald and Peter Wollny, Kassel: the violin, for it draws on open strings. An Bärenreiter Urtext. Lester, J. (2003) Bach’s Works for Solo Violin: open string is the name of the string which Style, Structure, Performance, NY: Oxford sounds when it is not stopped to produce a University Press. particular note. Schenker, H. (1980) Harmony, Edited and While the attraction of a single-move- annotated by O. Jonas, translated by E.M. ment piece resides in its capacity to say a Borgese, Chicago: Chicago University Press. great deal in a short space of time, what Yatsugafu, O. (2011) Performance-Practice Issues I like about the genre of the Partita is its In Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin (1944), Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation, University of capacity to encompass a wide spectrum of Georgia. emotions and moods.

2 Penderecki died on 29 March 2020. [Ed.]

29 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 30–35. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010030-06

The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary

Stephen J. Pyne Emeritus Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA Email: [email protected]

Abstract This is an invited commentary, after last summer’s fires, from Stephen Pyne, doyen of those studying fires in nature around the world, and author ofBurning Bush: A Fire History of Australia (1991); The Still- Burning Bush, rev. (2020); and Fire: A Brief History, 2nd edition (2020), revised with an Australian preface.

Australia and fire Saturday fires of 2009 rampaged across a hat Australia is a fire continent is not countryside shaped by coal and oil — a nat- Tnews. Since it broke from Gondwana, ural and social geography made possible by Australia has increased its flammability; the Hazelwood Power Station and its brown since the advent of humans, it has experi- coals. Of the 173 lives lost, 162 resulted from enced an almost inextinguishable source of fires started from powerlines — an apt meta- ignition; and since the arrival of Europeans, phor for the violence that can occur when it has undergone a more or less continual living and lithic landscapes cross. The end- disruption in fuels, sparks, and fire regimes less Red Summer fires of 2019/20 had a mon- that have challenged a transplanted way of strous drought to ready fuels, dry lightning to living that originally emerged from a land- kindle blazes, and a mosaic of quasi-natural scape not naturally disposed to burn. Aus- fuels in protected lands and dispersed settle- tralia has burned widely and routinely as ment vulnerable to ember storms. Climate far back as anyone cares to look. The first change and land use change, both underwrit- European explorers reported “fires by night ten by fossil fuels, readied plentiful tinder. and smokes by day.” The record of British Against such forces — ignitions so abundant, colonization is a chronicle of conflagrations fuels so profuse — human countermeasures whose names have filled up the days of the were inevitably inadequate. Deluges would week and more, spilling across the calendar have to end what drought had made possible.1 as flames have the countryside. What had been an incremental escalation Yet the most recent outbreaks feel different. in burning has made, as it were, a hydraulic The bad burns seem to be coming more often, jump. What have been fire fights became raging more savagely, and wrecking more fire sieges. What have been outbreaks have havoc. Black Saturday and a Red Summer of lengthened into seasons. What have been forever fires might serve as geodetic markers fire crises localized in time and space are from which to triangulate the future. Under- evolving into a globalized fire epoch. Call writing both lies another order of combus- it the Pyrocene. tion, one that is burning lithic landscapes of fossil fuels which are interacting with the 1 The 2020 Bushfire Royal Commission leant that March 2, 2020, was the first day for months that there ancient fires of living landscapes. The Black were no bush fires burning. [Ed.]

30 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Pyne — The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary

The Pyrocene essentially unbounded and so have their When did humans begin to redraw the geog- byproducts, which are no longer constrained raphy of fire on Earth? When did we go from by the primordial rhythms that governed cooking food to cooking landscapes and fire over the past 400 million years. They now to cooking the planet? Every observer can burn day and night, winter and summer, will have his or her preferred marker. through wet and dry, year after year. There is My reading is that it took the sudden no sink adequate to the source. Instead, the warming of the interglacial to create ideal effluent overloads the atmosphere, the bio- conditions for a fire-wielding species to sphere, the hydrosphere, the Earth. We are propagate its most potent technology. taking stuff from the geologic past, burning Humans and fire forged an alliance in which it with unanticipated consequences in the each would expand the range and power of present, and releasing its residue into the the other. Together, they could interrupt the geologic future. cycle of frost and thaw that had character- Similarly, there seems no inherent limit ized the Pleistocene. They could nudge, and on the power humanity derives from such then shove even climate. combustion until, at some point, the planet By burning, Aboriginal economies could becomes uninhabitable for people. Most prevent woods from reclaiming the wetter observers have focused on the impact of grasslands — the tropical savannas, the sour- emissions on climate change. But burning’s veldt, the tallgrass prairie, the pine steppes, byproducts also affect how people organize the cerrado and llano. With fire as a catalyst, and live on landscapes. They affect trans- agricultural economies could actively clear port, which also determines how natural and convert, or slash and burn through peat resources and agriculture connect to mar- and moor as well as forests, adding methane kets, and how people choose to arrange their from irrigation and livestock. When burn- residences. And they actively seek to replace ing stopped in the grasslands, many filled open fire, from candles to field fires, with with woods or thickened their presence. fossil-fuel-powered surrogates, and, where When people abandoned fields from disease, substitution fails, to suppress any expres- famine, or war, the forests returned. sion of flame. All this occurred within broad ecological In setting after setting, this pyric tran- baffles and barriers. What burned was living sition — the shift from burning living to landscape, and there were limits on how burning lithic fuels — has remade where much and how frequently fire could return, and how people live. Satellite images of the or what else could interact with fire. The Earth at night show the divide clearly. Sub- land could be exhausted, unable to recover Sahara Africa glistens with flames burning quickly, its fires starved along with other through living landscapes. Europe glows inhabitants. with electricity powered by fossil-fuel com- That changed when people, ever eager for bustion, or with technologies for which such more fire power, turned to lithic landscapes. combustion is a catalyst. Save for a period Revealingly, the earliest steam engines were of transition, only one kind of fire or the used to drain coal mines to make more fuel other exists at any site. Industrial combus- available. These combustibles have proved tion doesn’t play well with others.

31 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Pyne — The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary

Working fires are mostly gone from The Pyrocene in Australia modern cities and residences; are going from Australian history intersects this most recent agricultural practice; and are disappearing phase change in curious ways. Its contact from protected nature reserves. In industri- with Europe tracks, with eerie fidelity, the alized countries the rural landscape is being acceleration in humanity’s firepower that recolonized by an urban out-migration and has made the Pyrocene not simply a check a service economy, which also eliminates the on a succession of glacial breakouts but a buffer zone of fields and paddocks around runaway phenomenon in its own right. rural towns and the routine burning that Three events converged. Geopolitically, dampened wild fires. In many settings the Captain James Cook explored eastern Aus- crisis is not a surplus of uncontrollable tralia in 1770; Joseph Banks proposed a penal fires but a deficit of controlled ones. Like settlement in 1779; the First Fleet arrived the demographic transition with human in January, 1788. Technologically, James populations, the pyric transition leaves the Watt invented the first successful steam population of fire below ecological replace- engine between 1765 and 1776 and effec- ment value. tively announced the prime mover behind Thanks to transport and climate change, the industrial revolution. And, intellectu- local impacts have generalized — have, in ally, Joseph Priestly announced the discov- fact, globalized. The contours of the fire ery of “dephlogistinated air” which Antoine equivalent of an ice age are taking shape Lavoisier confirmed and more memorably with megafires, fire-informed biotas, melt- named oxygen in 1774 and 1777, respectively. ing ice packs and permafrost, spreading As an autonomous phenomenon, fire lost deserts, and mega-smoke palls taking the its standing; as an integrative concept, fire place of ice sheets, mountain glaciers, a shed its capacity as an organizing principle frozen Arctic, thickening permafrost, plu- for explaining what was happening. It disap- vial lakes, and outwash plains. Fire creates peared from scientific consciousness at the the conditions for more fire, as ice did for same time it began vanishing into machines. ice. Climate is warming. Sea level is rising. Out of sight, out of mind. Mass extinction is underway. Enlightenment science birthed a new The Age of Humans, the Anthropo- wave of pyrotechnologies. Its reduction- cene — there are many terms to describe ism was ideal for deconstructing processes the plexus of fluxes. Pyrocene gives us a con- into their elemental parts and then build- tinuous narrative that dates back to that ing tools to express them separately. It was ancient alliance between humanity and fire now possible to have heat without flame, and it grants a vivid analogue around which light without heat, combustion without to cluster the bewildering swarm of changes. plumes of smoke. This new power fed long- The upshot is too much bad fire, too little standing suspicions among European elites good, and too much combustion overall. It regarding fire. They distrusted free-burning adds up to a fire age. flame, hated fallowing (needed to furnish fuel for agricultural fires), and stigmatized the use of fire as inherently primitive; to be rational and modern demanded an alter-

32 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Pyne — The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary native to open fire. These attitudes were ment, one they celebrated as having grown applied not only to native peoples in colo- out of Australian experience and that con- nies, but to peasants in Europe itself. But it trasted both with British examples, which also left fire practitioners without a science sought to ban fire, and with American ones, to guide them. which sought to rally paramilitary muscle In brief, the steam engine added a to suppress it. Australia’s foresters were the novel pyrotechnology that had the power only group of foresters to embrace delib- to unmoor the ancient alliance between erate burning; it’s not hard to believe that humanity and fire; European imperialism the stubborn persistence of the firestick is provided a vector by which to propagate a reason. Then ecologists countered with European settlers, institutions, and ideas a firestick of their own, shifting the focus around the world; and the redefinition of from hazard reduction to biological values. fire through Enlightenment science helped Now Indigenous peoples are rallying around make the resulting changes — the entire a revival of traditional burning as a means of narrative of landscape fire — increasingly restoring heritage as well as country. invisible except as spasms of disaster. That Each group has its own term, context, and a continent so fire-rich as Australia should purpose for the practice, and the whole dis- feel the consequences early and often is not course has come to pivot around something a surprise. That its human history should like identity politics. The Aboriginal fires- so eerily align with its natural history does. tick farming made famous by Rhys Jones Of course, anthropogenic fire did not (1969) evolved into the “burning off” of begin with émigré Britons. Aboriginal fire rural Australia, then into “firestick forestry,” practices had already altered Australia’s “firestick ecology,” and “cultural burning.” biota over the course of tens of millen- Controversies over how and where to delib- nia — how much remains a matter of dispute. erately burn is a staple of Australian fire In Australia anthropogenic fire found an politics. At least three royal commissions especially receptive environment. It affected (1939, 1961, 2010)2 have granted it a central landscapes at a large scale long before role. With cause: in a fire-prone place, the it influenced Europe, North and South choice is not whether the land will burn America, and most of Eurasia. We might but when and with what effects. The fires- consider the experience a dress rehearsal tick is a device that can transmute bad fire for that greater reformation prompted by into good, and in social settings it can be the arrival of industrial combustion, which, a symbol, lever, or club. Over and over, it thanks to Britain, Australia felt early and becomes synecdoche for the whole, tangled offered an inviting environment. issue of how Australians live on a fire con- What I find more interesting, however, is tinent. the way that legacy of anthropogenic burn- There are practical concerns, too. Among ing persists. The Aboriginal firestick keeps many paradoxes, as we ratchet down our reincarnating. After the shock of contact, binge-burning of fossil fuels, we’ll have the “firestick habit” was picked up by rural ratchet up our routine burning of living Australians. After World War II foresters adopted it as a principle of land manage- 2 Stretton (1939), Rodger (1961), Teague B. et al. (2010).

33 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Pyne — The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary landscapes. A fossil-fuel civilization has Unlike many regions, however, Australia already baked into the future a new climate is better positioned to respond. It has fire and patterns of economy and society. Even institutions, long experienced in lighting if fossil-fuels were abolished tomorrow, the and fighting bushfires. It has a robust suite lag times would leave us with hazards and of fire sciences — has made fundamental risks for many decades. We will have a lot advances in fire behavior, fire ecology, and more fire — will, again paradoxically, need a fire anthropology. It has an unbroken tradi- lot more fire. What kinds of fires Australia tion of fire art that traces back to Aborigi- will have is a legitimately political question. nal bark paintings. It has a fire literature of Science can advise how to do better what novels, poems, and histories. It has a politics people choose to do and what the likely that recognizes that bushfires are a persis- consequences are of various choices, but tent problem. Its fire history harks back to it cannot choose. That is a deeply cultural an Indigenous heritage of firesticks and to matter. For the sapients it is among the ear- a Britain that, more than any other coun- liest choice the species made. Whether as try, outfitted a mild Pyrocene with steam, mutual assistance pact or Faustian bargain, then transported it around the globe, and it put us on a path we have never left. bequeathed a full-blown Pyrocene. It has a Among the dramatic changes in recent population that, for all their laments about times is an exponential increase in fire sci- the strangeness of an urban, British-founded ence. Fire still has no disciplinary home; the society on a sunburnt continent, and for only fire department on a university campus all the ineluctable alienness of bushfire, is is the one that sends emergency vehicles accustomed to fire on the land. Modern when an alarm sounds. But landscape fire is Australians still record a chronicle of smokes no longer the exclusive bailiwick of forestry. by day and fires by night. Geographers, ecologists, climatologists, First to experience, first to lead — Aus- physicists, chemists, mechanical engineers, tralia can turn what promises to be a prob- meteorologists, even social scientists and lem Pyrocene into an opportunity; only lawyers, even historians, novelists, and poets the U.S. has a comparable technological are publishing on fire as viewed through the and cultural capacity. Europe outside the prism of their home disciplines and genres. Mediterranean, for example, has almost As it has in natural landscapes, fire has once none of Australia’s experience and fire cul- again diffused through intellectual culture. ture to tap into. Other continents have fire and folklore but lack institutional heft. In a The Pyrocene: Australia can choose planet increasingly informed by fire in all its Australia is feeling the harsh shockwave manifestations, a world that is segueing into of an advancing Pyrocene. It feels it early the fire equivalent of an ice age, its experi- because it has long been a fire continent, ence counts. Australia is a firepower. How and because the pressures of the Pyrocene it uses that power matters to the rest of us. act like a performance enhancer. They make fire-prone places more fire-driven. They make fire-spared places more fire-suscep- tible.

34 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Pyne — The Pyrocene comes to Australia: A commentary

Acknowledgements Pyne, S. J. (2020) Fire: A Brief History, 2nd ed., Australian edition. NewSouth Pub., Sydney. I would like to thank Robert Marks for the Pyne, S. J. (2020) The Still-Burning Bush, revised. invitation to comment and all my Austral- Scribe, Melbourne. ian friends and colleagues for their encour- Rodger, J.G. (1961) (Western Australia): Report agement and assistance over many years. of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into and report upon the bush fires of December References 1960 and January, February and March 1961, Western Australia. Perth. Guy, Jack (2020) “After more than 240 days, Stretton, L.E.B. (1939) (Victoria): Report of the New South Wales is finally free of bushfires,” Royal Commission to inquire into the causes of CNN, Retrieved 4 March 2020. and measures taken to prevent the bush fires of Jones, Rhys (1969) “Fire-stick farming,” January, Melbourne. Australian Natural History 16: 224–228; Teague, B., Macleod, R, and Pascoe, S. reprinted as https://doi.org/10.1007/ (2010) (Victoria): Victorian Bushfires Royal BF03400623 Commission Final Report, Melbourne. Pyne, S. J. (1991) Burning Bush: A Fire History of Zagon, Chanel (2020) “Victoria’s bushfires Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney. declared contained after deadly bushfire season,” 9news.com.au, Feb 28.

35 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 36–38. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010036-03

Making SPACE for Australia: Convenors’ report The Royal Society of New South Wales and Four Academies Forum, Government House 7th November 2019

Roy Macleod1 and Susan Pond2* 1 Professor Emeritus of History, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, Sydney University 2 Chair, New South Wales Smart Sensing Network 2 Vice President, Royal Society of New South Wales * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

his year’s Royal Society of NSW and Australia’s long interest in reading the Heav- TFour Academies Forum devoted to the ens, beginning with the earliest Aboriginal subject of “Making Space for Australia,” observations and understanding of the con- drew together, in one day, authoritative stellations and their configurations. voices from the natural, technological and Introduced by Professor Anne Green, social sciences and the humanities, to con- Chair of the NSW Division of ATSE, the sider a range of issues that are likely to Keynote speaker, Professor Lisa Kewley, inform Australian public policy and public emphasized Australia’s strengths in space opinion in the decades ahead.1 science while taking us on a tour of the Held like the four previous Forums, Universe. The next session, Australia in the under the gracious Vice Regal patronage of Space Age, moderated by Professor Jane the Governor of New South Wales and in Hall, President of the Academy of the Social the ballroom of Government House, Sydney, Sciences, heard papers by the space histo- the inclusive gathering of 140 people repre- rian and curator, Kerrie Dougherty on “Sixty sented the Royal Society of NSW, the four years of Australia in space,” by Dr Megan Learned Academies, and guests from a cross- Clark (Director of the Australian Space section of the space community, including Agency), on the Agency and its work; by 13 undergraduate students from diverse fac- Dr Kimberley Clayfield, on CSIRO’s “Road- ulties across six universities and studying map for space;” and by Dr Adam Lewis, of various aspects of space. Geoscience Australia, on “Seeing and sens- Her Excellency the Honourable Marga- ing Australia from space.” ret Beazley, AO, QC, Governor of NSW, Dr Donna Lawler, Principal of Azimuth reflected during her opening remarks on Advisory, moderated the session devoted to Space Law, Security and Ethics. Prof Steven Freeland, the distinguished international 1 This Report appears on-line, at the Royal Society Space lawyer, summarized the “Limits of web site, https://royalsoc.org.au/council-members- section/459-making-space-for-australia-royal-soci law” in Space, and Dr Ben Piggott of UNSW ety-of-nsw-and-four-academies-forum-2019 which Canberra reminded us of the military and also contains links to the Society’s YouTube channel, geopolitical dimensions of Space policy. Dr https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yHmDj2V Lkgnpm-t7sIzSQ/, which contains links to videos of Nikki Coleman, RAAF chaplain and Space the presentations at the Forum.

36 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Macleod and Pond — Making SPACE for Australia: Convenors’ report ethicist, explored the “Ethical challenges in Judging from the RSNSW’s customary space: norms and conventions in peaceful post-conference survey, the Forum met the spacefaring.” challenges of the day, inciting a wide range A third session, expertly conducted by of questions that continued long after the Ms Annie Handmer, historian of science proceedings ended. At the same time, it of Sydney University, on Space and People, foreshadowed a number of fresh questions highlighted key themes in what is fast that may well be asked by academics, gov- becoming the “humanities of space,” with ernments, and the public at large and at papers by Jonathan Webb, of the ABC, on future RSNSW events. “The promise and peril of space;” by Dr Alice To paraphrase C.P. Snow, Australia has Gorman, of Flinders University, on “Space the future in its sights, and SPACE holds heritage: artefacts and archæology” (both great prospects for the next generation. now challenged by the profusion of space Bearing a distinguished 50-year history of debris); a theme capped by the writer and space engagement and blessed with major novelist Ceridwen Dovey, on “The privatisa- space-related facilities across the country, tion of space.” Australia can play a far-reaching role in the The final session, Australia's Space Econ- coming years, not only in science and tech- omy, moderated by Dr Susan Pond, AM, nology but also in law and ethics. Chair of the NSW Smart Sensing Net- In our view, these papers collectively work, brought us back to Earth, welcom- define Australia’s strengths, set directions, ing William Barrett, Senior V.P. of Asia outline and present roadmaps, and create Pacific Space consultants, who addressed new roles and opportunities for our univer- Australia’s promising space industry, then sities, government and industry. At the same Paul Scully-Power, AM, one of Australia’s time, they raise questions that should guide pioneering astronauts, speaking about the policy across issues ranging from domestic, challenge presented by “Space 2.0: Small agricultural and environmental surveillance Smart Satellites.” Finally, Group Captain to the codification of rules and convention Jason Lind explained the role that Defence for international cooperation in the control must and is playing in supporting Austral- of space debris and corporate competition. ia’s Space industry. These questions were drawn out by Dr. Len Our rapporteur, Dr Brett Biddington, Fisher, FRSN, on the ABC Science Show AM, of Canberra, skillfully summarized the (14 March 2020), calling urgent attention day. He reminded the audience that by a to the “tragedy of the commons” — the unique combination of history, science, and potential competitive overuse of commu- geography, Australia occupies an important nal resources — that is now playing out in place on the front line of continuing discov- Space. In this and other domains — whether eries in space. He noted the tension between in advancing precepts for regulatory law, the civil and the defence realms in space or in proposing and defending normative as well as an even bigger tension emerging standards of accountability — Australia between public and private investment in stands at a turning point in its history, and space. in the history of Australia’s contribution to human endeavour in Space.

37 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Macleod and Pond — Making SPACE for Australia: Convenors’ report

What role Australia will now play in this References story, the rest of the world will carefully Hardin, Garrett (1968) The tragedy of the watch and record. We have been reminded, commons, Science, 162 (3859): 1243–1248, 12 in celebrating the 50th year since Apollo 11, Dec. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/ that the American astronauts left a plaque sci/162/3859/1243.full.pdf Ostrom, Elinor (1990) Governing the Commons: on the Moon that recorded the belief that The Evolution of Institutions for Collective “We came in peace for all Mankind.” The Action, Cambridge: C.U.P., 1990, 2015. adventure that lies before us — as set out in this pioneering issue of the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW — is one in which Australia accepts both this challenge and its responsibilities. We can only hope this sentiment guides our leaders, in pursuit of our collective destiny, and remains our uppermost goal.

38 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 39–41. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010039-03

Making SPACE for Australia

Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC Governor of New South Wales Patron of the Royal Society of New South Wales

Abstract This is the opening address given by Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Gov- ernor of New South Wales, Patron of the Royal Society of New South Wales, to the Royal Society of New South Wales and Four Academies Forum on Making SPACE for Australia, at Government House, on Thursday, 7th November, 2019.

ood morning, esteemed Fellows and An astrophysicist and guide at the Sydney GFriends, I, too, pay my respects to Observatory, Kirsten spoke about how the our traditional owners and custodians of stars provided a “seasonal menu” for Abo- this land, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, riginal people. She gave the example of how and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander the constellation, Gugurmin, in Wiradjuri Elders, past, present and emerging. As we language, the Emu constellation, guided the know, and as Professor Sloan has pointed Wiradjuri people to find a rich source of out through his explication of the signifi- nutrition — emu eggs. cance of the Australian Space Agency logo, At different times of the year, the Emu Australia’s Indigenous peoples have long had constellation would appear in different posi- a connection with space, stretching back tions — sometimes running, sometimes sit- some 65,000 years. They were, indeed, this ting. When the Emu was in the sky directly land’s first skytrackers, cosmologists and overhead following sunset, and looked like astronomers. an Emu atop a nest, Aboriginal people knew For Indigenous peoples, the stars pro- that it was the right time to go looking for vided a calendar, a map and a navigational emu eggs. An Aboriginal tool, called an Emu tool; from the stars they also read the tides Caller, which looked like a short didgeri- and the weather. doo, would be used to “call” the Emu from The Milky Way determined many Indig- the nest by imitating the sound of another enous seasonal activities, including uses of Emu, providing the perfect decoy and lure land and the search for food. Just one exam- to enable the eggs to be collected. ple of this explains to us how the stars were This connection between the stars, Abo- used by Aboriginal people in their daily life, riginal culture and land use, involved in in particular, to find food. these reflections of age-old Indigenous I recently listened to the TED Talk of a astronomy, is a science deserving of a con- young Wiradjuri woman, Kirsten Banks.1 ference of its own, perhaps on a relevant anniversary celebrating the work of David 1 https://tedxsydney.com/talk/65000-yrs-the-great- Unaipon, astronomer, scientist and Ngar- history-of-australian-aboriginal-astronomy-kirsten- rindjeri Elder (1872–1967). banks/

39 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Beazley — Making SPACE for Australia

The past year has been a year of space uses of space in terms of water, minerals, anniversaries and significant milestones: resources and habitation.6 • 12 December 2018 — the Prime Minister • In amongst this mix of events, the Chi- announced the plan to open the Common- nese have landed rovers on the far side of wealth’s new Australian Space Agency in the Moon7 and declared ambitions with Adelaide, providing a launching pad to Russia to team up to further their space triple Australia’s space economy to $12 station plans.8 India’s Space Research billion and create up to 20,000 jobs by Organisation is planning to have a space 2030.2 In NSW, planning continues for the station orbiting by 2030.9 Fifteen nations Western Sydney Aerotropolis, a transfor- are members of the International Space mational economic hub for the aerospace Station program.10 In the blink of an eye, as well as other industries.3 it seems, there is a new development in • 20 July 2019 saw the celebration of the 50th space. anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar • And by 2030, the US plans to arrive on mission and the historic and momentous Mars with the first crewed Mars landing,11 occasion of the landing on the Moon. presumably cracking the code on why it is • 22 September 2019 — The Australian that “men come from Mars” … Space Agency and NASA announced the These breathtaking global plans raise a launch of a new partnership4 on future number of questions: space cooperation. This opportunity for • The global space economy was worth an Australia to join the United States’ Moon estimated $345bn in 2016.12 How strongly to Mars exploration, including NASA’s should Australia participate in what Artemis lunar program,5 is of singular national importance, strategically, in 6 1 October 2019 Media Release: https://www.ade terms of scientific research and applica- laide.edu.au/enterprise/UoASpaceExplorationNews tion and job creation. 7 Robotic lunar probe Chang-e-4 landed on 3 Janu- ary 2019, following a record 39 orbital launches, more • On 1 October this year, the University than any other nation. https://signal.supchina.com/ of Adelaide announced the set up of a chinas-space-program-is-taking-off/ Space Exploration Centre, to consider 8 https://www.space.com/russia-china-moon-explo ration-partnership.html 9 https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/space- week-2019-india-plans-to-have-an-orbiting-space-sta tion-by-2030-heres-what-we-can-expect-6825141.html

2 https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australian-space- 10 The ISS consists of Canada, Japan, the- Rus agency-adelaide sian Federation, The United States, and eleven Member States of the European Space Agency 3 https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Plans-for-your- (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The area/Priority-Growth-Areas-and-Precincts/Western- Netherlands,Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland Sydney-Aerotropolis and The United Kingdom). 4 $150 million deal 11 https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-landing- apollo-11-50th-anniversary.html 5 https://www.industry.gov.au/news-media/austral ian-space-agency-news/australia-to-support-nasas- 12 https://www.gigabitmagazine.com/telecoms/space- plan-to-return-to-the-moon-and-on-to-mars law-why-extra-terrestrial-economy-needs-regulating

40 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Beazley — Making SPACE for Australia

may easily become another — trillion In discussing, debating and driving dollar — “space race”? our conversations forward to the stars • What is our role nationally and interna- and — just as importantly — bringing them tionally in regard to space security, space back to Earth, I thank the Royal Society, our ethics and space law? We have a number four Learned Academies and our esteemed of international agreements (many signed moderators and presenters, for the prepa- in the 1960s and ’70s) and we have recently ration of your illuminating and insightful updated our own legislation, the Space presentations. I am sure they will be well- Activities Act 1998 to become the Space received … universally(!) (Launches and Returns) Act 2018.13 It is my honour to now open this fifth Royal Society of New South Wales and Four • How do we govern our activities in space, Academies Forum: “Making SPACE for Aus- both now and in the future? Who will tralia.” take responsibility for space debris, for example? Acknowledgements • How closely do we want to align with I thank Professor Ian Sloan AO FAA societies such as the Mars Society? FRSN — President of The Royal Society • In the increasing militarization and com- of NSW — for his Welcome and Acknowl- mercialisation of space, are we setting our- edgement of Country. I acknowledge the selves up for a new era of colonial conflict? Royal Society of NSW Vice Presidents Already we have a new space vocabu- and Councillors, representatives from the lary — "space mining,” “space economy,” four academies: — the NSW Academy of “space weapons” and “space army.” Technological Sciences and Engineering, • What are our humanitarian considera- the Australian Academy of Science, the tions — and our responsibilities to our Australian Academy of the Humanities, own planet — in pushing for research and and the Academy of the Social Sciences development of this frontier, which is, as in Australia — representatives of the NSW Antarctica was, ripe for exploitation? Office of Chief Scientist and Engineer and Is the choice, as H.G. Wells once posed: “All the NSW Smart Sensing Network, the 2019 the universe … or nothing”?14 Annual Forum Planning Committee, and Or are there positions between these two finally Distinguished Fellows, Distinguished polarities? Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

13 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/ C2004A00391 14 HG Wells, Things to Come (1936)

41 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 42–45. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010042-04

Australia’s strengths in space science

Lisa Kewley Research School for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia ARC Centre for Excellence in All-Sky Astrophysics in 3-Dimensions Email: [email protected]

Abstract Australia has a long history of space science discoveries. Recent Australian discoveries include the discovery of the most pristine star known, the most distant spiral galaxy, and a massive explosion from the black hole in our own Milky Way, 3.5 billion years ago. These discoveries provide crucial tests of star formation theory, galaxy evolution modelling, and models of the gas around supermassive black holes. Australian astronomers are also extensively involved in the development of new astronomical instrumentation for space, including the Skyhopper satellite, and laser-guided space debris tracking and de-orbiting systems. Finally, Australian astronomers are poised to take advantage of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, due to be launched in 2021.

Introduction low-altitude sites where the ground layer or pace telescopes are critical to Austral- higher layers in the atmosphere experience Sian astronomy. Astronomers require substantial turbulence. The best sites in the space telescopes for multiple key reasons. world for astronomy are at high altitude Our atmosphere absorbs and scatters light (2500–4000 m above sea level), enabling the at ultraviolet wavelengths, rendering ultra- telescopes to operate above the typical local violet astronomy almost impossible from cloud inversion layer. Even at these altitudes, the ground. Ultraviolet astronomy is nec- seeing affects these observations. essary for understanding star formation in Astronomical instrumentation labo- galaxies, and for modelling the full spectral ratories around the world, including the energy distribution from individual stars Advanced Instrumentation and Technol- and from entire stellar populations. ogy Centre at the ANU, have developed Our Earth and our atmosphere emit laser-guided adaptive optics to help over- significant amounts of infrared radiation, come these limitations. Space avoids seeing making infrared astronomy of faint sources entirely, and offers the best solution for extremely difficult. The light from distant targets where high-precision images are galaxies is redshifted, such that the rest- required. frame optical or UV light is shifted into Space telescopes are now operating at the infrared spectrum, and is only visible all wavelengths, from the gamma-rays and from space. X-rays, through to the UV, optical, infrared, Finally, our atmosphere blurs and dis- sub-mm, and microwave wavelengths. torts images of astronomical objects. This In this paper, I outline some of the funda- effect, called “seeing,” is seen most often on mental areas where Australia is producing

42 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Kewley — Australia’s strengths in space science leading research using space telescopes. I instrument on the Anglo-Australian Tel- also briefly discuss the recent Australian escope. This combination of space- and astronomy developments in cube satellites. ground-based data allows astronomers to measure the ages and chemical abundances Chemical evolution of the elements of hundreds of thousands of stars in the One of the key goals of the Australian Milky Way. So far, this team has measured Research Council Centre of Excellence ages and chemical abundances of 500,000 for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3-Dimensions stars in the Milky Way. Theoretical models (ASTRO 3D) is to understand the chemi- predict that when we reach 1,000,000 stars, cal evolution of the elements from the first we will be able to track back the chemical stars in the universe to the evolution of the and accretion history of the Milky Way to chemical elements in our own Milky Way. its formation. Within ASTRO 3D, Australian astrono- Exciting discoveries have been made mers are combining the GAIA satellite along the way. The GALAH used the with ground-based data from the Skymap- Hubble Space Telescope to show that a mas- per telescope and the world’s largest 8–10 m sive flare was produced by the supermassive telescopes to search for the first stars in the black hole in the centre of our galaxy 3.5 universe. Some of these first stars are likely million years ago. The impact of this massive to exist in our own Milky Way, and are iden- explosion was felt 200,000 light years away tified by their spectra containing the least (Bland-Hawthorn et al. 2019). amount of chemical elements known. ANU astronomers have discovered the top three Galaxy evolution most pristine stars in the universe (Nord- Australian astronomers use space telescopes lander et al. 2019).1 to understand the formation and evolution The first galaxies in the universe are of galaxies across cosmic time. To observe being searched for by University of Mel- the most distant galaxies, Australian astron- bourne researchers with the Hubble Space omers use gravitational lensing. Predicted Telescope (e.g., Livermore et al. 2018). This by Einstein, a large mass in the universe team are analysing galaxies that are at red- (such as a cluster of galaxies) bends light shifts of z~8, looking back 13 billion years around it, mimicking the light path through ago, when the infant universe was only 5% a refracting telescope that has a diameter of its current age. many galaxies across). The combination of Researchers at the ANU and the Univer- space telescopes, gravitational lensing, and sity of Sydney are tracking back the chemical 8–10 m class telescopes have led Australian history of the Milky Way. This field, called astronomers to make major discoveries in Galactic Archeology, uses the Milky Way’s galaxy evolution, including the discovery of fossil record of stars. The Galactic Archeol- the most distant spiral galaxy (Yuan et al. ogy (GALAH) team combines data from the 2017). This discovery provides a major test GAIA satellite with high-resolution spec- of galaxy formation and evolution models, troscopy from the world-leading HERMES which have predicted a later formation of spiral arms. 1 See this and the other references for figures, diagrams, and images. [Ed.]

43 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Kewley — Australia’s strengths in space science

Australian space instrumentation southern hemisphere. This facility includes development and testing thermal and vacuum test facilities, vibration Recently, Australian astronomers have been and shock testing facilities, and an anechoic involved in the development of CubeSats for chamber to test communications systems space astronomy. A CubeSat is a miniature for space. satellite that is made of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 ANU InSpace and EOS Space Systems are cm units. The weight limit of CubeSats is developing a world-class laser space debris stringent; it must be less than 1.33 kg per tracking and de-orbiting system. They have unit. Multiple CubeSats can be launched developed a photon pressure laser that is into orbit simultaneously, and launch is capable of nudging space debris to de-orbit relatively inexpensive. them. They will first use low-powered lasers ANU astronomer Brad Tucker is devel- to detect and follow space satellites and oping a completely different space astron- identify debris to be de-orbited. omy mission. GLUV is a program to place InSpace is also developing the first space telescopes onto Google’s balloons (called laser communications system, touted as Google Loon). The Google Loon program being an “un-hackable” system. Laser com- aims to launch balloons over rural regions munications systems have many applications, around the world to improve world-wide including quantum encryption, distributed internet connectivity. While Google Loon quantum computing, synchronising atomic is looking down at earth, GLUV telescopes clocks, and long-baseline quantum sensing. are looking up into space to understand core The future collapse supernovae. Core-collapse supernovae are massive explosions produced by Astronomers in Australia and around the giant stars when they complete their fusion world are looking forward to the upcoming processes in their core. The outer layers are launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. blown off in supernovae, with the core col- Due to launch in 2021, the James Webb Tel- lapsing into a neutron star or a black hole. escope is an all-infrared telescope, designed University of Melbourne astronomer to detect the first galaxies in the universe, Michele Trenti is leading an international and to reveal Earth-like planets around team to build a CubeSat called Skyhopper. other stars. Australian astronomers are Skyhopper is a 22 kg satellite with an infra- part of world-wide teams that will receive red camera with rapid response capabilities. the first data from the James Webb Space The infrared detector needs to be cooled Telescope, called the Early Release Science to –130 degrees C to reduce detector noise Program. Stay tuned! and obtain high sensitivity to astronomi- Acknowledgements cal objects. The detector is currently being Parts of this research were supported by the built and will be used to search for extra- Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre solar planets, as well as to look for the first of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in stars and galaxies. 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through pro- The Advanced Instrumentation and ject number CE170100013. L.J.K. gratefully Technology Centre at the ANU houses the acknowledges the support of an ARC Laure- largest space satellite testing facility in the

44 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Kewley — Australia’s strengths in space science ate Fellowship (FL150100113). This research Nordlander, T., M.S. Bessell, G.S. Da Costa, has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data A.D. Mackey, M. Asplund, A.R. Casey, A. System Bibliographic Services. Chiti, R. Ezzeddine, A. Frebel, K. Lind, A.F. Marino, S.J. Murphy, J.E. Norris, B.P. References Schmidt, and D. Yong (2019), “The lowest detected stellar Fe abundance: the halo star Bland-Hawthorn et al. (2019) “The large- SMSS J160540.18-144323.1,” Monthly Notices of scale Ionization Cones in the Galaxy,” The the Royal Astronomical Society, 488, L109-113. Astrophysical Journal, 886 (1), article id. 45, pp. Yuan, T., J. Richard, A. Gupta, C. Federrath, S. 22. Sharma, B. A. Groves, L. J. Kewley, R. Cen, Y. Livermore, R., M. Trenti, L. D. Bradley, S. R. Birnboim, and D. B. Fisher (2017) “The most Bernard, B. W. Holwerda, C. A. Mason, and ancient spiral galaxy: a 2.6-Gyr-old disk with T. Treu (2018) “HST follow-up observations a tranquil velocity field,” The Astrophysical of two bright z~8 candidate galaxies from the Journal, 850 (1), article id. 61, pp. 18. BoRG Pure-parallel Survey,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 861 (2), article id. L17-23.

45 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 46–57. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010046-12

Sixty years of Australia in space

Kerrie Dougherty Space Humanities Department, International Space University, Strasbourg, France Email: [email protected]

Abstract Australia’s involvement in space activities commenced in 1957, at the beginning of the Space Age, with space tracking and sounding rocket launches at Woomera. By 1960, Australia was considered one of the leading space-active nations and in 1967 became one of the earliest countries to launch its own satellite. Yet by 1980, Australia’s space prominence had dwindled, with the country lacking both a national space agency and a coherent national space policy. Despite attempts in the latter part of the 1980s to develop an Australian space industry, the lack of a coherent and consistent national space policy and an effective co-ordinating body, left Australia constantly “punching below its weight” in global space activities until the Twenty First Century. This paper will briefly examine the often-contradictory history of Australian space activities from 1957 to the announcement of the Australian Space Agency in 2017, providing background and context for the later papers in this issue.

Introduction Launchpad: the Woomera or 60,000 years the Indigenous people of Rocket Range FAustralia have looked to the sky, using “If the Woomera Range did not already exist, the stars to determine their location, find the proposal that Australia should engage in their way across the land and mark the a program of civil space research would be passage of the seasons and the best times unrealistic”. (NAA: A1945, 227/1/39) to undertake specific activities. Today we This 1959 quote from the Australian Acad- would refer to this as using space for ‘posi- emy of Science highlights the crucial role tion, navigation and timing’. played by the Woomera Rocket Range in Sixty years ago, a new generation of the inception of space activities in Aus- Australians also looked to the sky: for both tralia, although the establishment of the military and scientific reasons, they wanted Range itself was unrelated to space research. to explore space to better understand the Woomera was founded in 1947 as a weapons cosmic environment in which the Earth development and testing facility, primarily itself exists. for the United Kingdom’s long-range missile What we now refer to as the Space Age, program (Morton, 1989). However, managed commenced in 1957, when the Soviet Union by the Australian Defence Scientific Service launched the world’s first satellite, Sput- (ADSS),1 Woomera’s vast downrange areas nik-1. This paper presents a brief overview and the specialised skills in missile technol- (a ‘speed dating’ version, if you will) of the ogy, launch and precision tracking that had history of Australian space activities over the past 60 years, which will provide some context for the later papers in this issue. 1 The ADSS was the predecessor of the today’s Defence Science and Technology Group.

46 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space been developed to support the weapons test- Nunn camera observatory in 1958. These two ing programs there, meant that the Rocket facilities marked the beginning of Austral- Range was ideally placed to become the hub ia’s long-term involvement in space tracking. of early space activities in Australia. Space tracking in Australia When NASA was formed in 1958, the two IGY tracking stations were transferred to the new agency. By 1969, Australia was playing host to the largest number of NASA tracking facilities outside the United States, supporting each of its three networks: The Deep Space Network, for robotic lunar and planetary exploration; the Manned Space Flight Network and the Space Tracking and Data Acquisition Network, for orbiting scientific satellites (Mudgway, 2002; Figure 1: Location of the Woomera Rocket Range Tsaio, 2008). Although funded by NASA, showing the extent of its downrange areas and these stations were staffed and operated by satellite launching corridor. local personnel, enabling direct Australian The International Geophysical Year participation in the Unites States’ space program. The catalyst for Australian involvement in space activities was the IGY, or Inter- national Geophysical Year, a period of 18 months between July 1957 and December 1958 dedicated to a global scientific research program that focussed on the relationship of the Earth to its broader space environment (Doyle, 2012). In 1955, both the United States and the Soviet Union, announced that they would attempt to launch a satellite during the IGY. Australia, and particularly the Woomera Range, were in the right place geographi- Figure 2: Armstrong stepping onto the lunar cally and geopolitically to host tracking and surface, as seen around the world via the data reception stations for the two networks Honeysuckle Creek tracking station. that the United States wanted to construct The most significant space tracking event around the world for its satellite program: with which Australia has been involved the Minitrack radio interferometry tracking to date was the reception of the television and data reception system; and the Baker- images of the first human mission to the Nunn telescope tracking cameras (Tsaio, lunar surface, Apollo 11. Commander Neil 2008). A Minitrack station was established Armstrong’s first step onto the lunar surface at Woomera in 1957, followed by a Baker- was received at NASA’s Honeysuckle Creek

47 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space tracking station, near Canberra, while the The most significant sounding rocket majority of the Apollo 11 lunar television program at Woomera, and the longest-last- was broadcast to the world via the CSIRO ing, was the British Skylark, first launched Parkes Radio Telescope (Lindsay, 2001; in 1957. Although Skylark’s origins lay in Dougherty and Sarkissian, 2010). defence research, it transitioned across the One of the world’s great astronomy 1960s into a versatile tool for space astron- instruments, the Parkes Radio Telescope has omy (Brand, 2014). Among the research had a long association with NASA, assisting institutes to use Skylark were the Universi- with its various space tracking programs. In ties of Adelaide and Tasmania, which con- the 1960s, its innovative design served as ducted ultra-violet and X-ray astronomy the prototype for the 64 metre antennae of research that led to important discoveries NASA’s own Deep Space Network (Sarkiss- in X-ray astronomy (McCracken, 2008). ian, 2001). The Weapons Research Establishment Today Australian involvement in space (WRE), the division of the ADSS directly tracking programs and the exploration of responsible for the Woomera Range, devel- the solar system continues. On behalf of oped Australia’s first sounding rocket, the NASA, CSIRO manages the Canberra Deep High-Altitude Research Program (HARP) Space Communications Centre in the ACT. in 1956. Although unsuccessful, the HARP CSIRO also manages the European Space rocket demonstrated Australian innova- Agency’s space tracking complex at New tion with the earliest-known use of glass Norcia in Western Australia. fibre reinforced plastic (fibreglass) in the space sector (Ordway and Wakeford, 1960; Sounding rocket programs at Woomera Dougherty, 2017). Military and civilian interest in the nature HARP’s more-successful successor, the of the Earth’s upper atmosphere converged Long Tom, paved the way for an extensive during the IGY, encouraging the devel- program of Australian upper atmosphere opment of sounding rockets, sub-orbital research, much of it conducted in conjunc- launch vehicles capable of carrying scien- tion with the University of Adelaide. The tific instrument packages to the fringes of early WRE sounding rockets were Aus- space, although not into orbit. Britain and tralian designed but composed of surplus Australia were among a handful of nations British rocket motors. Across the 1960s, that developed sounding rockets during the Australian-made content of the WRE the IGY (Berkner, 1958; Doyle, 2012), both sounding rockets increased, with the first programs intended to support the missile ‘all-Australian’ vehicle, Kookaburra, becom- research projects at Woomera as well as IGY ing operational in 1968 (Dougherty, 2006). scientific research. Several hundred British, Australian, European and American sounding rockets were launched from Woomera between 1957 and 1979 when the last of the sounding rocket programs ended (Dough- erty, 2006).

48 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

The WRESAT satellite was developed and constructed by the WRE, with the Physics Department of the University of Adelaide providing the scientific instrument package. This was designed to complement the WRE/ University of Adelaide sounding rocket program, providing a comparison from orbit to the data obtained via sounding rocket. (Lloyd, 1988; Dougherty, 2013).

Figure 3: Long Tom, the first successful Australian sounding rocket developed by the Weapons Research Establishment. Australia’s first satellites With its involvement in NASA space tracking and the sounding rocket programs at Woomera, by 1960 Australia was considered a leading spacefaring nation (Poirer, 1960). In 1967, the confluence of defence and scientific interest in the upper atmosphere that had helped launch Australia into space activities, enabled the development of its first satellite, Weapons Research Establish- ment Satellite-1, (WRESAT-1). WRESAT’s origins lay in a joint US/ UK/ Figure 4: Cutaway view of WRESAT-1, showing its interior layout. Australia defence research program known as Project SPARTA (Special Anti-missile WRESAT-1’s successful launch on 29 Research Tests, Australia), which was November 1967 gained Australia entry conducted at Woomera in the mid-1960s. into the ‘Space Club’ as one of the earli- Ten US Redstone rockets were brought to est nations to launch its own satellite.3 The Australia for this program, but ultimately battery-powered satellite operated success- only nine were needed. The United States’ fully for five days, providing useful data for SPARTA team generously donated the spare comparison with sounding rocket results. vehicle to Australia, so that the country could launch its first satellite (Morton, 1989; Dougherty, 2013).2 astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space on a suborbital flight 3 Australia’s place in the order of national satellite 2 Redstone vehicles had been used to put both the launches is a complex issue. It is more fully discussed United States’ first satellite into orbit, and its first in Dougherty, 2017

49 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

In 1968, the WRESAT team received Fairchild Australia’s Planar Award for outstanding achievements in the Australian electronics industry. All those involved in the program anticipated that there would be further WRESATs. However, having gained the international kudos of a national satellite launch, the Gorton government had no interest in funding further satellites and WRESAT-1 was never to be followed by WRESAT-2 (Dougherty, 2013). Figure 5: Australis-OSCAR 5 ready for launch. Note the antennae made from steel measuring Although it was the first to be completed, tape. being commenced in March 1966 (before WRESAT was even on the drawing-board), Lift-off from Down Under: Australia’s second satellite, Australis- Europa and Black Arrow OSCAR 5 was not launched until 1970. The In 1955, Britain commenced the develop- world’s first amateur radio satellite created ment of Blue Streak, a medium-range ballis- outside the United States, Australis was the tic missile intended to be tested at Woomera. brainchild of a group of students at the Uni- The WRE undertook a massive extension of versity of Melbourne, who had been track- the Range and its facilities to accommodate ing the Project OSCAR (Orbiting Satellite the program. However, whilst in develop- Carrying Amateur Radio) amateur satellites. ment, Blue Streak became essentially obso- Its design incorporated several innovations lete as a weapon and was cancelled in 1960. for a small satellite, including the first use This resulted in serious embarrassment to of a passive magnetic attitude stabilisation the British and Australian governments system and the first command system, ena- (Morton, 1989; Hill, 2001). bling the satellite to be switched on and off, In order to recoup its investment on the thus saving its limited battery power (Mace missile, the British government proposed 2017). it to European nations as the first stage of After several delays in finding a launch a collaboratively developed launch vehicle for the satellite as part of Project OSCAR, that would provide an independent satel- Australis finally made it to orbit on 23 Janu- lite launch capability for Europe. Out of ary 1970. It was designated OSCAR 5, as this proposal grew the European Launcher the first in a revived amateur radio satellite Development Organisation (ELDO). Brit- program under the newly formed Radio ain provided the Blue Streak missile as the Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT). first stage for ELDO’s new Europa launcher. Launched in conjunction with a NASA France provided the second stage; West Ger- weather satellite, Australis-OSCAR 5’s high many the third stage and Italy developed the orbit means that it will remain in orbit for test satellite the vehicle would launch. Aus- approximately 1,000 years (Mace, 2017). tralia provided the launch pads at Woomera that had been originally developed for the Blue Streak missile, while Belgium and The

50 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

Netherlands provided the electronics and ELDO allowed ESA to operate successfully downrange tracking station at Gove, in the and become one of the world’s major space Northern Territory (Krige and Russo, 2000). agencies. After withdrawing from ELDO, Britain made one final attempt at developing its own satellite launch vehicle, designated Black Arrow. Derived from the reliable Black Knight defence research rocket used at Woomera for several years, the Black Arrow program was cancelled for financial reasons shortly before its fourth test launch. How- ever, as the vehicle was ready, this launch was allowed to proceed. On 28 October 1971, Black Arrow R3 successfully placed the Prospero satellite into orbit, the second satellite launched from Woomera. Despite this success, the Black Arrow program was not re-instated, and the United Kingdom remains to this day the only nation to have developed a satellite launch capability only to then give it up (Hill, 2001). Australian adoption of Figure 6: Europa F-8 ELDO launch from Woomera in November 1968. satellite applications The first applications satellites, so called Some critics considered this consortium because they apply the advantages of an approach to launcher development a recipe orbital perspective to assisting with tasks on for disaster (Krige and Russo, 2000), and Earth, were launched by the United States despite ten test launches from Woomera in 1960. By the latter part of that decade, between 1964 and 1970, ELDO was never communications and weather satellites able to successfully launch a satellite from were beginning to become part of daily life, Australia. After Britain withdrew from while Cold War militaries and maritime ELDO in 1968, leaving France the dominant commerce were utilising the first naviga- partner, the ELDO program was transferred tion satellites. to the French launch facility at Kourou, in Recognising the advantages of space French Guiana, in 1970. The program was, applications for a vast and sparsely popu- however, no more successful at Kourou and lated country, Australia was an early adopter ELDO collapsed in the early 1970s (Krige of these satellite technologies. Today it is and Russo, 2000; Hill, 2001). The European considered “one of the world’s heaviest and Space Agency (ESA), was born in 1975 from most sophisticated users of space services” the ashes of ELDO, and it can be argued that (CSIRO, 2015). it was understanding the mistakes made by

51 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

Australia became a founding member The Bureau of Meteorology installed its of the International Telecommunications first weather satellite image receivers at the Satellite (INTELSAT) consortium, which beginning of 1964, which had an immediate was created in 1964 to provide a global satel- and profound impact on weather predic- lite telecommunications network. Australia tion in Australia. The first satellite photo would become INTELSAT’s sixth-largest showing the whole of Australia in one image shareholder and play an important role in was received from NASA’s Applications the control and monitoring of its satellites Technology Satellite-2 in 1967 (Griersmith (Barrett, 1991). & Wilson, 1997). Australian meteorologists have remained at the forefront of the interpretation and application of weather satellite information, and today receive data from Japanese, Chinese, NASA and NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) meteorological satellites to provide weather predictions and support climate change research (Dougherty, 2017). Remote sensing, which uses satellites to look down on the Earth to understand and manage the environment and natural resources, was also a field in which Aus- tralia was an early adopter and an important pioneer (McCracken, 2008). Groups within CSIRO and the mining industry began using data from the Landsat-1 satellite not long Figure 7: The original Cassegrain horn antenna at the first Australian INTELSAT satellite Earth after its launch in 1972. An archive of Land- station in Carnarvon, Western Australia. sat images of Australia was established in 1975, and the first Landsat receiving station In the late 1970s, Australia also became a outside the United States was opened near founding member and major shareholder Alice Springs in 1980 (McCracken, 2008). of the INMARSAT (International Maritime Suitably upgraded, this facility now receives Satellite) consortium (OTC, 1981), while data from NASA, NOAA, French and ESA Australia’s first national domestic satellite satellites, in addition to the Landsat series communications system, AUSSAT, was (Dougherty, 2017). established at the beginning of the 1980s. The first AUSSAT satellites were launched Management of early Australian in 1985, but the system was privatised in space activities 1992 to become the Optus communications Australia’s initial involvement in space company as a competitor to Telstra. INTEL- activities came about, not in response to SAT and INMARSAT were also privatised a deliberate decision by the government within a decade of AUSSAT’s privatisation, to engage with space (as was the case with ushering in a new global telecommunica- other nations), but as a result of external tions regime. (Dougherty, 2017).

52 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space factors (in the case of space tracking) and This resulted in a doldrums period from the perceived requirements of the defence 1975 until the mid-1980s, by which time sector (in the case of the sounding rocket the development of the AUSSAT satellite programs). Consequently, there was from system had sparked a new interest in devel- the outset, no government commitment to oping a national space industry. the idea of a national space policy or a coordinated national space program (Dough- Making Space for Australia erty, 2017). The establishment of AUSSAT, coupled with Proposals for the establishment of a a growing use of space applications (par- national space program from the Austral- ticularly remote sensing), generated a new ian Academy of Science and the WRE enthusiasm in Australian industry for the were rejected across the 1960s as too costly. possibility of becoming a major supplier, or (Dougherty, 2017). Neither the Menzies even prime contractor, to future generations Government, nor its successors, saw the of AUSSAT or other national satellites. need to establish a national space program In response, the CSIRO Office of Space or invest in the space sector, beyond those Science and Application (COSSA), was space applications that would provide a established in 1984 and quickly became national good benefit or support defence a driving force in developing Australia’s and national security (Dougherty, 2017). expertise in remote sensing. (McCracken, Although there was some Cabinet level 2008). Under COSSA’s leadership, three discussion in the early 1960s about allocat- remote sensing instruments were developed ing the management of Australian civil space that flew successively on European remote activities to a single government depart- sensing radar satellites ERS-1 (launched ment or entity such as the CSIRO, bureau- 1991), ERS-2 (launched 1995) and Envisat cratic infighting brought these proposals to (launched 2002) (Dougherty, 2017). nought (Dougherty, 2017). The WRE, with The Hawke government commissioned its management of Woomera, the NASA a report from the Australian Academy tracking stations and the Australian sound- of Technological Sciences, into whether ing rocket program, effectively became a de Australia should establish a space indus- facto space agency, although the Bureau of try. The outcome of the Academy’s review Meteorology, OTC and CSIRO continued was presented in the 1985 report A Space to manage their own space-related activities Policy for Australia, also known as the Madi- independently. gan Report, after the Chair of the working Consequently, when Britain decided in committee, which put forward the basis for 1970 that it would cease weapons testing at a comprehensive national space policy. It Woomera in 1980, there was no space sector recommended that a national space agency ‘authority’ to argue against the Australian should be established, to support the devel- Government’s decision to cease the sound- opment of a national space program and a ing rocket program and wind the Range local space industry. down, since it had no particular use for the The Hawke Government, however, did facility. not fully adopt the report’s recommendations. Although it created the Australian

53 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

Space Office (ASO) in 1987, this was not performance and the opportunity for com- an independent agency, as recommended mercialisation was lost (Dougherty, 2017). by the report, but a unit with the Depart- Commencing in 1986, several proposals ment of Industry, Technology and Com- were put forward for the development of a merce, specifically focussed on developing commercial spaceport in northern Australia, an Australian space industry: Its slogan was to gain a foothold in the lucrative satellite “Making Space for Australia”. The ASO was communications industry. Large satellites also critically underfunded for the tasks required launch facilities near the equa- required of it, having an annual budget of tor in order to place them in geostationary around $4 million, instead of the $25 million orbit. In addition, it was hoped to capture recommended in the report (Madigan, 1985). some of the multiple launches that would be required to service the multi-satellite constellations (some proposed to number many hundreds of satellites) in Low Earth Orbit that were planned for early mobile phone networks. Locations on Cape York, around Darwin, and on various islands to the north of Aus- tralia or in Papua New Guinea were proposed, many planning to use newly available cheap Russian launch vehicles. However, none of these projects ever came to fruition came to fruition, nor did other proposals promoting the revival of Woomera as a Figure 8: The Endeavour Space Telescope (in launch site for polar-orbiting satellites. cylinder front left) in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle. Lost in space? When the Howard Government came to Despite these drawbacks, the ASO had some office in 1996, it terminated the ASO and small successes, the best known of which all its space-related projects, as the new gov- was the Endeavour Space Telescope. Funded ernment’s view was that the space sector was by the ASO, the Endeavour telescope was like other high-technology industries and it built by a new Australian space company, was not necessary to allocate specific sup- Auspace, that was spun out of research at the port for the development of a local space Mt. Stromlo Observatory. When first con- industry. It did, however, pass the Space ceived, Endeavour was a cutting-edge ultra- Activities Act in 1998, the world’s first violet space telescope. However, its space formal legislation specifically covering com- qualification flight on the US Space Shut- mercial space launch operations. This pro- tle was delayed as a result of the Challenger vided a legislative framework under which accident in 1986. By the time it had made proposals for commercial launch facilities two qualification flights, in 1992 and 1995, could be regulated (Siemon and Freeland, other instruments had already surpassed its 2010).

54 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

In addition to terminating the ASO, in recommended the creation of an Australian August 1996 the Howard Government also space agency and a co-ordinated national restructured COSSA, creating from it a new space policy (Siemon and Freeland, 2010). Co-operative Research Centre for Satellite The Rudd Government, while not fully Systems, responsible for a new small satel- embracing the report’s recommendations, lite program, FedSat (Federation Satellite). established the Australian Space Research FedSat was designed to build on existing Program (ASRP) in 2009, which allocated national research experience and industry $40 million to support technology demon- capabilities through the production of a strator and education projects that could small demonstrator satellite as a celebra- lead to viable economic programs for utilis- tion of the centenary of Australia’s Federa- ing space to the benefit of Australia. tion. Although construction delays meant Some of the projects supported by the that FedSat was not launched until 2002, the ASRP did go forward to further commer- project was a modest success, with the satel- cial development. It also enabled the growth lite functioning until 2007 (Dougherty, 2017). of Australia’s now-recognised expertise in space situational awareness. In 2013 Austral- ia’s first formal space policy, the narrowly focussed Australia’s Satellite Utilisation Policy, was released under the Gillard Government (Dougherty, 2017). However, the ASRP was terminated and the Satellite Utilisation Policy left in limbo when the current Liberal government came to office in 2014. The New Space Paradigm Figure 9: An illustration of FedSat in orbit above Australia. Around the beginning of the last decade, a new space paradigm emerged. Some- Despite the FedSat project, the Australian times referred to as NewSpace or Space 2.0, civil space sector languished in the early this entrepreneurial movement has been 2000s, prompting one commentator to inspired by commercial space pioneers lament that Australia was “punching below such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and driven its weight” in space activities (Kingwell, by young entrepreneurs who want to take 2005). A growing call from the struggling advantage of modern miniaturisation and Australian space sector for a national space digital technologies. Over the past decade policy and a national space agency, eventu- or so, these technologies have revolution- ally led the Senate’s Standing Committee on ised what can be accomplished in space Economics to review the state of Australia’s with relatively small budgets, enabling the space science and industry sector. The out- production of very small, cheap, effectively come of this review was the 2008 report Lost expendable satellites that can be launched in Space? Setting a New Direction for Australia’s on light, cheap launchers. Satellites the size Space Science and Industry Sector. Like the of a loaf of bread now offer capabilities that earlier Space Policy for Australia report, it

55 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space previously required a multi-billion dollar ian space activity, which has the potential satellite launched on a multi-billion dollar to far surpass any previous achievements. rocket (Dougherty, 2017). This Space 2.0 paradigm has been adopted Acknowledgements very rapidly by the entrepreneurial space Figures 1, 3, 4 and 6 are original WRE pho- community in Australia. While some local tographs and diagrams provided by Defence NewSpace companies have already flow- Science and Technology Group. Figure 2 ered and died, as is the nature of start-ups photo of monitor at Honeysuckle Creek and entrepreneurial companies, others are tracking station by Ed von Renouard, cour- now well established and forming part of tesy of www.honeysucklecreek.net. Figure Australia’s ‘new space age’, with satellites 5 courtesy of Owen Mace. Figure 7 photo in orbit and commercial products in the by Graham Watts; courtesy of www.honey marketplace. sucklecreek.net. Figure 8 NASA. Figure 9 This rapid transformation of the civil courtesy of Glen Nagle. space sector, with its entry costs now significantly lower than in previous decades, pro- References vides real opportunities for a wide range of Barrett, W. (1991) “OTC’s involvement in Australian companies, especially small and space”, Proceedings of the International Aerospace Congress and Sixth National Space medium enterprises, to become involved in Engineering Symposium, Melbourne, Institution the global space industry. The realisation of Engineers Australia, Canberra, Australia, that the Australian economy was failing to 1–11. capture a significant share of a global space Berkner, L. (ed). (1958) Annals of the industry worth approximately $350 billion International Geophysical Year, volume VI: Manual on rockets and satellites. Pergamon in 2017 (Bryce, 2017) led to a reappraisal of Press, London, UK. Australian space engagement by the Turn- Brand, R.H. (2014) Britain’s first space rocket: the bull Government. It came to recognise the story of the Skylark, New Forest Electronics, need for a national space agency to act as a Fordingbridge, UK: ‘front door’ to the world for the Australian Bryce Space and Technology (2017) Global space sector. Space Industry Dynamics, Research Paper for the Department of Industry, Innovation and Consequently, at the 2017 International Science, Australian Government. Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial government announced its intention to Research Organisation (CSIRO) (2015, 15 form the Australian Space Agency (Sino- June), Deal with Europe blasts Australia into the dinos, 2017), which came into being on 1 space economy [press release]. Dougherty, K. (2006) “Upper atmospheric July 2018. research at Woomera: the Australian-built After sixty years that have seen the sounding rockets,” Acta Astronautica, 59, Australian space activity wax and wane, 54–67. lacking policy direction and effective co- Dougherty, K. (2013) “WRESAT: Australia’s ordination, the formation of the Australian first satellite,” in Harlow, J. (ed.) History of Space Agency offers the opportunity for this Rocketry and Astronautics, vol. 39, American Astronautical Society/Univelt, San Diego, country to enter into a new era of Austral- CA, USA, 237–260.

56 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dougherty — Sixty years of Australia in space

Dougherty, K. (2017) Australia in Space, ATF Morton, P. (1989) Fire Across the Desert: Press, Adelaide, Australia. Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Dougherty, K. & Sarkissian, J. (2010) “Dishing Project, 1946–1980, Australian Government up the data: The role of Australian space Publishing Service, Canberra, Australia. tracking and radio astronomy facilities in the Mudgway, D. (2002) Uplink–Downlink: a History exploration of the solar system,” in Ciancone, of the Deep Space Network, 1957–1997 (NASA M. (ed.). History of Rocketry and Astronautics, SP 2001–4227) National Aeronautics and vol. 33, American Astronautical Society/ Space Administration, Washington DC, Univelt, San Diego, CA, USA, 285–314. USA. Doyle, S. E. (ed.) (2012) The International National Archives of Australia: Department Geophysical Year: Initiating International of Defence (III), Central Office; A1945, Scientific Space Co-operation, International Correspondence files; 227/1/39 Australian Astronautical Federation, Paris, France. Space Research Programme, 1960; “Cabinet Griersmith, D. & Wilson, J. (1997) “Satellite agendum on space research prepared by D. meteorology”, in Webb, E. (ed.) Windows on Cameron, Minister in Charge, CSIRO, 9 meteorology: An Australian perspective, CSIRO, June 1960” NAA: A1209, 1958/5710;. Melbourne, Australia 253–274. Ordway, F.I. & Wakeford, R.C. (1960) Hill, C. (2001) A Vertical Empire: The History of International Missile and Spacecraft Guide, the UK Rocket and Space Programme, 1950–1971, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, USA. Imperial College Press, London, UK. Overseas Telecommunications Commission Krige, J. & Russo, A. (2000) A History of (OTC) (1981) Annual Report 1980/81. Overseas the European Space Agency, 1958–1987, vol. Telecommunications Commission, Sydney, 1 — ESRO and ELDO, 1958–1973 (ESA SP-1235), Australia. European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Poirier, B. (1960) “Four nations lead foreign Netherlands. progress,” Missiles and Rockets, October 3, 25. Kingwell, J. (2005) “Punching below its weight: Sarkissian, J. (2001) On Eagle’s wings: The Still the future of space in Australia,” Space Parkes Observatory’s support of the Apollo Policy, 21, 161–163. 11 mission, Publications of the Astronomical Lindsay, H. (2001) Tracking Apollo to the Moon, Society of Australia, 18, 287–310. Springer-Verlag, London, UK. Siemon, N. & Freeland, S. (2010) “Regulation Lloyd, K. (1988) Upper Atmosphere Research, of Space Activities in Australia,” in Jahku, Australian Government Publishing Service, R. (ed.) National Regulation of Space Activities, Canberra, Australia. Springer Science & Business Media, Berlin, McCracken, K. (2008) Blast off: Scientific Germany. Adventures at the Dawn of the Space Age, New Sinodinos, A. (2017, September 25) Turnbull Holland, Sydney, Australia. Government to Establish National Space Agency Mace, O. (2017) Australis-OSCAR 5, ATF Press, [press release]. Adelaide, Australia. Tsaio, S. (2008). Read You Loud and Clear: The Madigan, R. (1985) A Space Policy for Story of NASA’s Spaceflight Tracking and Data Australia: A Report Prepared for the Minister Network (NASA SP 2007–4232), National of Science by the Australian Academy of Aeronautics and Space Administration, Technological Sciences, Australian Academy Washington, DC, USA. of Technological Sciences, Melbourne, Australia.

57 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 58–60. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010058-03

The Australian Space Agency

Megan Clark Head, Australian Space Agency Email: [email protected]

Introduction know as a small country we simply cannot t is absolutely an honour to be here for do that without the global partnerships that Ithe Royal Society of New South Wales we will need to participate in. This is one of and the Joint Academies Forum in what is the most commercially focused purposes of a very timely and important gathering, and any space agency in the world. I appreciate the chance to be able to be here. There are some very important values that I also pay my respects to the knowledge and we used to establish the Australian Space traditions of the Gadigal people of the Eora Agency. We wanted to be known as a respon- Nation. sible citizen in space. We felt there was a real What I wanted to do today was give you role for us, not just globally, but also in our a quick update of where we are with the region over time to be that very important Australian Space Agency. I also wanted to voice for a rules-based order in space and to turn my attention to the recent announce- do our bit at the global table. ment by the Prime Minister that Australia We have the entrepreneurship, we have would join the United States on the “return the “can do” attitude, we absolutely have the to the Moon and on to Mars.” ideas and the talent, we have the capacity to run through the legs of giants — we’ve Establishing just got a little bit of catching up to do, and the Australian Space Agency these are some of the values that absolutely Nations establish space agencies for many run through the Agency. different reasons. It may be to demonstrate In terms of what we’re responsible for, global dominance in technological develop- it is civil space policy and strategy for the ment. Other countries look to the inspira- regulatory piece. We coordinate civil space tional capacity of science, and we’re seeing activities, and we are also looking to inspire that now with India inspiring a whole new and engage the Australian community. This nation of young graduates coming forward is within the broader context of supporting in that country. The Australian Govern- the growth of the Australian space industry, ment’s case was absolutely clear that the and not just growth, we truly want to see and purpose here was to diversify our economy. facilitate, and encourage and catalyse as much I think we’ve been surprised as well by the as possible a transformation of the industry. capacity of space to inspire this country. Year one for So we set ourselves the purpose of trans- the Australian Space Agency forming and growing Australia’s space industry, to lift the broader economy and One of the first things we needed to do was improve the lives of all Australians. We to modernise our legislation. Very early on,

58 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clark — The Australian Space Agency after the establishment of the Agency in July, next few years — we’re already at $1.6 billion in August 2018 our team managed to update of forward-projected capital project pipe- the Civil Space Act into the Space Activities line, and that includes R&D investment, Amendment for Launches and Returns. A couple and $700 million of that is inbound capital. of key things in there: we needed to make If we looked at that two years ago, it was sure our rules and laws covered the launch of literally just a couple of hundred million. So spacecraft from aircraft, something it didn’t this investment of capital is also the world actually anticipate, and also high-powered and others taking the signal from the Aus- rockets. The Agency has been in consulta- tralian Government and the stimulus that tion around the country and has written the we’re seeing around the states and territo- rules for that, and we’re now working with ries, and saying Australia is serious about space. As a result, it has created a good plat- the industry on implementing those rules. form for investment. We set ourselves the goal of engaging the One of the things that the nation told us nation. We actually set ourselves the goal is to do what is not being done. We love what of five million Australians in our first year CSIRO is doing, we love what Geoscience would hear, see or read about the Agency. Australia is doing, we even like what ACMA We felt that one in five was actually a pretty is doing (the regulator), but we need one good target, but we blew past that literally in door. We need one door, one voice — we’re the first few weeks. By October 2019 we now missing out on these opportunities that can have touched 110 million Australians. Now, I truly only be brokered from government to know we don’t have 110 million Australians; government and through agency to agency. it means that people are seeing and hearing We’re now partnering with multiple about this new endeavour multiple times. agencies around the world. That’s as well as Importantly, if you’re going to transform the most recent agreements that we’ve had an industry, you need to get out to where the in the last month with New Zealand, DLR, industry is which is in the states and territo- and we’ve updated as well with ESA and the ries. We have worked very extensively with Italians. So we really are starting to open the Premier’s and First Minister’s Office doors for the purpose of our researchers and in each of the states and territories. In fact industry to walk through those doors. in our first year, every 12 weeks myself, my We’re at the cusp of a transformation deputy and a team visited every state and ter- from the investment in space by govern- ritory to engage in that dialogue because the ments. Decades ago it was 80 per cent gov- states and territories themselves need to have ernment funding, 20 per cent commercial. strategies for the growth of high-tech jobs. That has now completely flipped around We set ourselves the goal of stimulating and we’re seeing government still having a an investment of $2 billion into the space very significant role here. We’re seeing the sector, a billion of which we wanted to come commercial entities now dominating the from outside Australia into the country. This investment, and we’re seeing the industri- was not about moving around money inside alisation of low-Earth orbit in itself, so we the country because it’s the investment of knew we needed a mechanism to be able to capital in the sector that truly grows jobs. join together with industry partners to be We set ourselves that goal to do that in the able to grow and transform this industry.

59 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clark — The Australian Space Agency

As part of this we formed the Statements • Access to space: when we first started it was of Intent and Cooperation. These basically like “It’s not about rockets,” but it is about outline our strategy, and ask industry what rockets now. they are going to do to support the objec- In terms of the NASA announcement, we tives of the Agency, what they are going to will join NASA to “return to the Moon and do to invest in internships in R&D and in on to Mars.” It’s a $150 million program over establishing facilities here in Australia, and five years. We’ll do demonstrator projects what they are going to do to stimulate jobs. I that showcase our capabilities. We’ll also think these have helped generate that inter- work on some very significant major pro- est that we’re seeing and the investment. jects and support access of companies and researchers into the supply chains. National civil space priorities One of the key things of going back to the We are a small country, so we need to focus Moon and Mars will be the search for water. on those things that work well for us and You need an awfully big rocket now to do where our competitive advantage is. this. One of the rockets; the Space Launch • First of all; position navigation and timing. System, is a payload of 26 tonnes. This is the Australia has made the commitment to NASA program Artemis 1 first of all orbit- bring our positioning in our maritime, our ing the Moon, so taking human spacecraft, land and our airspace up to 10 centime- then taking humans in an orbit around the tres accuracy. Importantly, the decision to Moon, then building out the components move to precise positioning in our capital of the Gateway, the power propulsion, the cities where we can take additional cor- human habitat, and then also making sure rections from the mobile phone towers that there’s a lunar lander on there. Then and get down to perhaps three to four cen- Artemis 3 will be the crewed mission to the timetres. That means you can automate Gateway and the lunar surface from 2024. transport, you can do all sorts of things, The next phases of this, and Australia has so a really wonderful start to that invest- the capacity to join in this up to Artemis 7, ment. Geoscience Australia will do that. this is really living and working now on the • Earth observation: the next generation of Moon and testing those technologies and communication, laser optics, laser radio, things that we will need to go to Mars. In some extraordinary work there. December 2013 the LADEE mission noticed that there was water vapour coming particu- • Space situational awareness: taking our larly connected with meteorite showers, so role here in the Southern Hemisphere as one of the first tasks of the mission to the important. Moon will be to see if we can tap into that • Leapfrog R&D: was actually a grab bag for water that sits possibly below the surface. all of the things that we’re really good at, but we need to be world class and out Conclusion there in the supply chains. Overall, we’re working very hard to build an • Robotics and automation: a clear leader for Agency of which Australia, hopefully, will Australia. be proud. Thank you.

60 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 61–64. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010061-04

CSIRO: our roadmap for space

Kimberley Clayfield Leader, Space Technology Future Science Platform, CSIRO, Australia Email: [email protected]

Introduction Australia is uniquely positioned in the SIRO, Australia’s national science Southern Hemisphere to support interna- Cagency, was established more than a tional space missions through the provision hundred years ago and has 75 years of space of tracking and communication services. science heritage. Fifty years ago CSIRO CSIRO was recently appointed to pro- played a key role in supporting NASA’s vide operational support for the European Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Space Agency’s Deep Space Tracking Sta- Today the $350 billion global space tion at New Norcia in Western Australia. market is growing, NASA is calling for a And CSIRO also manages the operations return to the Moon with international par- of CDSCC, which is one of three stations ticipation, and Australia is uniquely posi- worldwide that make up NASA’s Deep tioned and eager to take advantage of this Space Network. CDSCC is currently track- opportunity. The Australian Space Agency ing around 35 Deep Space missions, includ- was established with the goal of tripling ing the well-known Voyager 2 spacecraft. the size of the Australian space industry in After 42 years Voyager 2 is now approxi- terms of economic value, and creating up to mately 18 billion kilometres from Earth 20,000 jobs, by the year 2030. Investing in travelling through interstellar space, and R&D to assist Australian industry growth due to Voyager 2’s southward trajectory out and solve Australia’s greatest challenges is of the solar system and its distance from CSIRO’s core role. CSIRO aims to be a key Earth, the CDSCC tracking station and the technology partner to the Australian Space Parkes radio telescope are now the only two Agency, driving technological innovations facilities in the world that are capable of and providing science and research facili- having contact with that spacecraft. ties that will support the Agency’s industry CSIRO has had world-leading capabili- growth goal. ties in Earth observation data analytics, cali- CSIRO hosts several national space bration and validation for decades, which facilities, including the Australia Telescope are coordinated by the CSIRO Centre National Facility, or ATNF, and the Can- for Earth Observation. This centre is also berra Deep Space Communication Complex, home to CSIRO’s first CubeSat, CSIRO- or CDSCC. The ATNF includes three radio Sat-1, which is under development in part- telescopes in New South Wales at Parkes, nership with Adelaide space technology Narrabri and Mopra, near Coonabarabran, company Inovor Technologies, and is due plus the Australian Square Kilometre Array to be launched from the International Space Pathfinder in Western Australia, which is an Station in 2021. array of 36 antennas.

61 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space

The Centre for Earth Observation also sensing systems, structural technologies manages CSIRO’s 10 per cent capacity share and onboard data processing of the UK-operated NovaSAR-1 satellite, • remote operations and in situ resource which is expected to become fully opera- utilisation, including new technologies tional in 2020. NovaSAR-1 is a synthetic for off-Earth resource exploration and aperture radar (SAR) satellite which can synthetic biology approaches to resource operate day and night, and through smoke extraction and cloud, making it well suited to assisting • human factors and biomedical technolo- with managing many of our national bush- gies to better support human space mis- fire and flood challenges. CSIRO will oper- sions ate our share of NovaSAR-1 as a national facility for all researchers to access. • Earth observation data analytics and applications development Space Technology • new high bandwidth space communica- Future Science Platform tion technologies using optical and tera- In addition to these activities, CSIRO’s hertz band links, and newest space research program is the Space • new techniques for space object tracking. Technology Future Science Platform, or Space FSP. The aim of this program is to Current projects further CSIRO’s space capabilities by iden- The following section highlights a few exam- tifying and developing the science to leap- ples of the projects underway through the frog traditional space technologies, and to Space FSP. identify new areas for Australian industry NASA is planning to return humans to to work in — areas in which we can lever- the Moon by 2024 and establish a perma- age our existing space and terrestrial capa- nent human presence there, and the Aus- bilities for new space applications, and in tralian Government recently committed which Australia can be globally competitive to supporting the Australian space sector in order to support the Australian Space to participate in this mission. There is sig- Agency’s industry growth goals. nificant interest in accessing valuable lunar The Space FSP was established in late 2018 resources, particularly water ice, to sup- with a program lifetime currently of three port human missions to the Moon. Remote and a-half years. Over the past 12 months mining operations and asset management the Space FSP has already initiated 23 pro- are already a strength of the Australian jects with a total program value of over $21 resources sector, and applying this to the million already. Its activities focus on the space environment through in situ resource National Civil Space Priorities outlined by utilisation is a challenge that Australia is the Australian Space Agency and address a looking to play a role in. wide array of opportunities, including: The Space FSP currently has four pro- • advanced satellite technologies, particu- jects in the robotics, remote operations and larly in relation to CubeSats and small resource utilisation area, and one of these satellites, including power, control and projects is developing a predictive analytics software platform to produce 3D resource

62 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space models of the Moon, asteroids and other ing techniques — namely electron beam bodies to support future prospecting and melting and cold spray — for Invar, which resource utilisation planning. The Space FSP is a low coefficient of thermal expansion is also looking at potential new opportu- alloy, to create metallic composite compo- nities relating to providing space analogue nents, including precision optics mounts, facilities here in Australia, which encom- for CubeSats. Using these manufacturing passes everything from Mars surface ana- techniques, the mechanical properties of a logues to microgravity facilities to digital composite component can be tailored in twins. different locations on that component. The Space FSP is also leveraging CSIRO’s With regard to space biomedicine and existing Earth observation expertise and space life sciences, experimental “labs in a facilities to make significant developments cube”, based on the CubeSat format, are related to the accessibility and application a permanent fixture on the International of satellite-derived data. This includes: uti- Space Station (ISS). One of the Space FSP lising the NovaSAR-1 satellite to grow SAR projects is developing a new “lab in a cube” expertise nationally and drive the uptake testing platform called an Optocube, which of SAR data in Australia; and building on will enable human cells, particularly bone CSIRO’s data cube expertise to create high- cells, to be studied on the ISS. The Opto- performance data processing infrastructure cube is unique in that it will use light as the to better analyse, integrate and utilise mul- only stimulus to control cells and to detect tiple Earth observation data types includ- results, so the experiments are able to be ing hyperspectral and lidar data. This latter completely contactless. project aims to improve satellite data acces- The Space FSP is also in the preliminary sibility and utilisation for a broad range of stages of exploring opportunities related to applications, from agricultural crop and bio-manufacturing for healthcare in space, freshwater algal bloom modelling to carbon and space agriculture. stock and greenhouse gas monitoring. Globally, rapidly growing Earth observa- Future pathways tion data volumes are an ongoing challenge The projects mentioned here are not an both with regard to effective handling and exhaustive list of the Space FSP’s activities. use of the data for various applications, and Furthermore, the Space FSP currently runs with respect to the increasing bandwidth until mid-2022 and it will continue to invest required to downlink the data from satel- in new collaborative activities over the next lites. Under another Space FSP project, the two and a half years. CSIROSat-1 satellite will provide a platform All of these investments of course pro- to demonstrate sophisticated onboard data duce the best outcomes when they are done processing techniques to reduce the amount in partnership with other research organisa- of data needing to be downlinked from the tions and with industry, which provides the satellite. path to impact for these new technologies, In the materials and manufacturing and the Space FSP welcomes opportunities domain one of the Space FSP projects is for new collaborations. CSIRO will also demonstrating novel additive manufactur- continue to partner on other R&D pro-

63 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Clayfield — CSIRO: our roadmap for space grams to build Australian space industry CSIRO looks forward to continuing to capability, like the DMTC High Altitude work closely with the Australian Space Sensor Systems Program and the SmartSat Agency and Australian industry on the next CRC. giant leaps to the Moon, Mars and beyond. https://research.csiro.au/space/

64 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 65–69. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010065-05

Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space

Adam Lewis Geoscience Australia Email: [email protected]

t’s really a privilege to be here speaking Springs, painted with colours that are of Iabout this very briefly today at, as has significance to the native American people been observed, a really opportune time.1 I’m in the Sioux Falls area of the US. I would going to take you on a journey about remote love to spend time talking about all the lead- sensing looking down. ership that Australians have done in Earth We’ve heard about how inspirational it is observation, but not today. to look at space. We’ve heard how inspira- What’s really exciting about this area at tional space engineering and enterprise is, this point in time? Everybody’s heard about yet astronauts who go into space will almost remote sensing satellites; but, frankly, the always talk about how moved they are and supply chain that links those satellites to inspired they are when they look back at decisions has never really matured. By the Earth from space, when they observe Earth supply chain, I mean on the one hand we as a sole planet in space, a fragile beautiful have satellites taking measurements, on place that we live. The image called ‘Earth the other we have people making decisions. Rise’ is famous. It was taken on Christmas Look at something like positioning satellites: Eve, 1968. It’s said to be the most important when I get into an Uber, the driver and I are environmental photograph ever taken. both using a satellite to know where we are; Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that neither of us knows about it or has to know many, many satellites have since been about it. There’s nothing equivalent in this launched to observe Earth. We have con- land: remote sensing is looking down. stellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit We’re starting to understand what that capturing data, measuring our atmosphere, supply chain looks like and it’s starting to our oceans and our lands. That’s produced transform the way in which we’re using and things like images of Australia through will use these satellites and their informa- programs like the Landsat satellite which tion. It hasn’t happened before because it’s celebrates 40 years of cooperation with Aus- more complicated and more difficult to do, tralia this year, or this week in fact — the but after more than 10 years of effort, we’re Director of the United States Geological just getting there now. Survey is in Alice Springs. The first step is that now these satellites The efforts are held together through are not science missions anymore, they’re international networks of people and infra- synoptic operational missions capturing structure, symbolises by this dish in Alice high science-quality data, run in an ongoing sense by the European Space Agency, the United States Geological Survey and 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of other international space organisations. The Dr Lewis’s talk.

65 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lewis — Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space data are free: they’re unlicensed so they’re every image is calibrated, it’s flagged accord- open licensed, anyone can leverage them, ing to whether it’s a good observation or and they’re going to continue; that makes a has a cloud in it, and the time series is used huge difference. so that one can integrate or differentiate What that does, though, is produce a through time — a bit of an inspiration from problem with data; these data are not easy the astronomical community — and actually to use. They contain a lot of noise, they extract far more information than has ever have clouds in them, so the next step that’s been possible before. being taken — based on some really leading This was invented in 2013 when these work from Australia and other countries data were processed in this way to produce over the last decade — is that the satel- the first map of Australian surface water lite operators are now starting to produce for the National Flood Risk Information these data, not as raw images, but as ready- Program that was running at that time. The to-use measurements, and this concept of map — which shows areas where there’s analysis-ready data has emerged and been rarely water in red, they’re flood plains, endorsed through the international com- through to areas where there’s persistent munity where these satellites are producing water, in green and blue — was a world first; primary measurements of the land surface, nobody had done anything like this before. the reflectance of land surface, its tempera- There’s something like 10^14 actual observa- ture, its roughness. The word “measurement” tions going into that particular map. is really important because it’s allowed this It’s now a continental product which is community to start moving into a quantita- updated every month as new data come in, tive science field, rather than a qualitative with wide ramifications, and underlying analysis. that are a series of measurements. That then leaves a huge problem with big This supply chain is starting to work; it’s data: how do you actually manage all the starting to be filled out. The last part is how data that we now have available and ready that connects with decision makers; not just to use? An Australian innovation, the Open decision makers in government, but across Data Cube, has actually provided the solu- all sectors, and that’s a process of building tion to that, so now we’re seeing something opportunities that can allow a user com- that Australia made being taken up globally. munity — an ecosystem is the emerging word A satellite sees the earth as a bunch of strips me — an ecosystem of users to engage with which are continually building up over time. the opportunities presented by these conti- It’s not a good way to work with data. nental products that have been produced, a Computers like to work with data in this little bit like the weather service produces sort of format, and so the Open Data Cube maps of surface temperature for the day. paradigm — you’ll hear about the Data It’s not just about water — what I’m Cube if you talk to anyone in Earth obser- showing here is a little black square in the vation pretty much globally now — is that middle of the image. For that black square the data are restructured or indexed into what’s being measured from the same sat- something which is geographically regular ellites, using an algorithm developed in and stacked as a time series. Every pixel in Australia, is how much green vegetation

66 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lewis — Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space there is, versus how much bare earth or dry their time wrangling data, correcting data, vegetation, and that’s been tracked through finding it, getting it, putting it on their com- time from the late 1980s through to present, puter and correcting it. showing a signal, and the signal corresponds I got some feedback from Norm Camp- to a cropping regime, a wheat crop, and then bell, who ran Maths and Stats in Perth in it changes in the early 2000s through to a the CSIRO when we provided him some more persistent green as they change the ready-to-use calibrated data. He got it crops to almonds, the implications for water straight away. This saved time and let him use. The important thing is that that analy- focus on the research question, “What are sis can be done everywhere in Australia and the processes that are happening and how every day, and provided to everyone. Geo- are people interacting with those pro- science Australia has been funded to main- cesses?” — the hard questions. tain that as an operational capability going Third, more enthusing: students. We’re forward, and that’s Geoscience Australia’s now at a point where students who are Digital Earth Australia program. not remote sensing specialists can engage We now have a really exciting opportu- with these data sets and do things that they nity where this supply chain, as I said, is just couldn’t do before. A couple of years starting to work. Just what does that mean? ago Emma Johnston, at UNSW, and I got Making space for Australia; what does it together and created a little collaboration, mean in this context? I think it has a number and Ana Bugnot, her student, produced an of implications. assessment of the water quality in all the First, government. For government it estuaries around Australia and published it, means there starts to be this regular and and someone in the conference that Emma available and authoritative evidence base was at took a photo and sent it back to me that can inform decisions in the envi- saying, “Check this out. They’re using our ronment in a way that’s never been done data to do this wonderful research.” So stu- before. The New South Wales Government dents can now engage with this and use it as produces a map every month, a state of the a resource, and they’re doing that. drought report. It shows for every parish And, fourth, more exciting still, consortia in New South Wales the status of the farm of researchers are starting to use the same dams, compared to normal, and it’s based on data and do things that haven’t been done an analysis of those satellite data which are before. There is a methodology for mapping automatically generated; it compares how mangroves that’s been agreed by a national much and how big the surface of the dam consortium, and we now have an annual is to normal, based on the history, and pro- update of the mangroves in this particular duces a map, adds it up by parish to make a part of the coast, which changes through map across the state. time and expands up till about 2013, and Second, things which were not antici- then in some areas of the coast there was a pated when the satellites were launched massive dieback as the coastal area contracts are now starting to have real impact. For to be virtually nothing, all of which can be researchers it’s really cool. Researchers in quantified, but then it can be scaled up so this area traditionally spent 80 per cent of that could be done for the whole country.

67 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lewis — Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space

So for the first time, having spoken about mercial setting. So innovators are getting it for decades, we now have an national into these datasets. assessment of mangroves. Graphs, from I think equally exciting is what it means the late ’80s to the present, show how the for these small satellites. We heard earlier total area changes, and how the density of about companies putting up tiny satellites. canopy cover changes, so we have national At a conference in California in August 2019 assessments of things which previously were companies like Planet, who make these tiny theoretically possible, but completely unaf- satellites, were talking about how they’re fordable, even if they could agree on the working and what they’re doing. They dem- methodologies. onstrated that they will use the infrastruc- It’s interesting to see what this means for ture of these highly calibrated government industry, which can now engage with these satellites as a baseline, so they will take data sources, whereas previously it was too the weekly satellite observations from the expensive and too difficult. The data may United States Geological Survey, or in this have been free and open, but actually having case, from the European Space Agency, and the expertise and going through the process mash their data very accurately, so they can of getting them, working with them, was an then provide one-metre resolution every day, overhead that small-to-medium enterprises, and they have the authority to correct the like Spatial Vision, wouldn’t contemplate data in a way which is consistent with the for a normal size product. They could now government science agencies. This is a capa- get these data from Geoscience Australia bility that is relevant to anybody who’s using and leverage them as they see fit. these satellite data. Other industries are more exciting: a Most importantly, what does it mean company called Cibo Labs based in Toow- nationally? It means we have billion dollar oomba uses a map of an agricultural product economies growing on these data. We have on an almost daily update by Geoscience a lot at stake here and our primary interests Australia which shows how much of the over the last decade or so has been to ensure ground is bare earth, how much is green that these data flows continue. There are at vegetation, and how much is dry vegetation. least three ways in which we can do that. We They take that as an input, then they make it need leadership in international forums, so into a pasture biomass map, and add that up this week in Canberra there’s a Ministerial by paddocks, and then they feed it to their Forum of the Group on Earth Observations farmers as an app, as a piece of information hosted by Australia, multiple international that they can use to modify and optimise delegations there, and that’s a good thing. their land management. That’s talking about Australia giving back When there was a closure to the US Gov- and then helping the community. ernment on Christmas Eve, 2018, we had a I have co-chaired something with Alex bit of a glitch at our end, because we rely Held from CSIRO on the most powerful on them. Cibo noticed it straight away and committee on this Committee on Earth we had somebody fixing it, actually using Observing Satellites for a couple of years this in an operational context in the com- where we get to talk to people who oper-

68 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lewis — Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space ate billion dollar budgets, unlike us, with taken the software into the Amazon Cloud satellites. and now we have the ability to go to Tanza- We must also look at investing in the nia and look at how water use has changed upstream section. We have to get something there. We can expose that to anyone in into space so that we’ve got a real seat at the Africa and they can use it as they see fit and table with these capabilities. Instruments guide its future development. on satellites that we need and that grow our We’re at a really exciting time in Earth industry and that are useful to others are the observation looking down; not all the inspi- way to do that. ration’s up. My counterparts in NASA only Most important of all, or most impactful have $3 billion budgets, but they’re still great of all, is contributing our ideas internation- people to work with when they’ve got three ally. We’re now taking algorithms, such as orders of magnitude more money than you the water algorithm we use in Australia, and have, you don’t have to do much to have applying them to whole new continents, some good friends. Thank you. such as Africa, as of last weekend. We have

69 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 70–82. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010070-13

The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities

Steven Freeland Professor of International Law, Western Sydney University Email: [email protected]

Abstract The development of space-related technology since the dawn of the ‘space age’ in 1957 has given rise to many new and exciting possibilities. Humankind is now seeking to embark on a broad range of space activities and the utilization of this technology forms an integral element of the global society, such that the world is dependent upon constant and unimpeded ‘access’ to space. Yet, the existing international legal and governance framework, largely developed in a very different era of space activities (1960s–1980s), is now under strain to provide the necessary certainty, standards and protections to appropriately address specific uses of space that have emerged due to recently evolving space technologies. This gives rise to a number of significant challenges for the ongoing global governance of the use and exploration of outer space and, in particular, humankind’s interaction with, and dependency on space-related technology. Important questions arise as to how to address these challenges in a way that will enable humankind to continue to use space for peaceful purposes and to garner significant benefits through such use for the benefit of the global society. This article highlights some of the major challenges that arise and outlines important factors that must be considered in developing appropriate legal, regulatory and policy frameworks for future space activities, so as best to serve the interests of current and future generations.

The complexity and ubiquity of space Since then, some fundamental interna- n 4 October 1957, a Soviet space object, tional legal principles have developed that OSputnik I, was launched and subse- significantly improve the standard of living quently orbited the earth over 1,400 times for all humanity through, for example, the during the following three-month period. facilitation of public services such as satel- This milestone heralded the dawn of the lite telecommunications, global position- space age, the space race (initially between ing systems, remote sensing technology for the Soviet Union and the United States), weather forecasting and disaster manage- and the legal regulation of the exploration ment, and television broadcast from satel- and use of outer space.1 lites, coupled with many additional uses of space that are, and will be possible through

1 Professor of International Law, Western Sydney University; Visiting Professor, University of Vienna: Permanent Visiting Professor, iCourts Centre of University of Hong Kong; External Examiner, Uni- Excellence for International Courts, Denmark; Vis- versiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia; Director, iting Professor Université Toulouse 1 Capitole; Senior International Institute of Space Law; Member of the Fellow, London Institute of Space Policy and Law; Space Law Committee, International Law Associa- Associate Member, Centre for Research in Air and tion; Member of the Space Law and War Crimes Com- Space Law, McGill University; Adjunct Professor, mittees, International Bar Association.

70 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities the advent of the miniaturization of satel- Legal challenges posed by the lites.2 development of space technology Furthermore, the scientific and explora- Given the rapid advance of technology in tory nature of many space activities further so many spheres and the clear reality that, enhances our knowledge of the universe in many respects, the world is becoming in which we live, as well as the origins of “smaller” and increasingly “international- the Earth and of humankind. We are now ized,” there is an imperative to explore the also looking at the prospect of establishing fundamental design elements of supra- human settlements in space and further uti- national legal governance for issues of lising and exploiting the natural resources global concern — for example, the impacts of space that might ultimately be accessible of climate change, world poverty, the global to us. commons and international criminal jus- Space is vital in terms of the world econ- tice4 — whilst also retaining a grounded omy, strategic thinking, terrestrial military view of their significant practical contem- strategy, geopolitics, human rights, com- porary relevance. mercial enterprise, technological innovation Since the exploration and use of outer and, frankly, the future of humankind. The space is so impactful on this ongoing evolu- impact of our use of space and the increasing tion, leading as it does to so many changes range of space activities mean that law does in the way that individuals, communities, and should have an important role to play in cities, nations and the world operate and ensuring that such activities are carried out exist, this is equally the case when it comes in an appropriate manner, with appropriate to the regulatory and policy frameworks for outcomes and benefits and for appropri- space activities. The sheer pace of change ate purposes. Moreover, the avoidance of a and the broadening of potential activities 3 “tragedy of the commons” scenario is cru- in outer space dictates that we need to con- cial if humankind is to garner the maximum tinually monitor the scope and content of benefit from what space can offer. this framework, whilst at the same time rec- Clearly, therefore, the prospects for the ognising that, at least from a strictly legal future use of outer space offer both tre- regulatory perspective, it will not (ever) be mendous opportunities and challenges for possible for the law to keep up with these humankind, and law at both the interna- changes. tional and national levels will continue to This is highlighted, for example, by the play a crucial part in this regard. It is in this interaction between space technology and context that this article sets out to briefly another area of great relevance to future outline some of the various challenges ahead global/international regulation: that of for legal regulation in this sphere. cyber law and cyber security. It is important to recognize that the important issues that arise from the continuing development of

2 See Freeland (2019). 3 See Hardin (1968). For a discussion of the implica- 4 For an example of the interplay between the use of tions of the tragedy of the commons to the use of outer space technology and the promotion of international space, see Freeland (2017a). criminal justice, see Freeland & Jakhu (2018).

71 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities cyber technology are increasingly relevant way in which to protect important space for the regulation of outer space, given the infrastructure. A closer consideration of increasing rush towards a “digitization” of the interplay between cyber capability and space activities. Just as there have been space operations is an equally (and perhaps past lessons for space law in considering more compelling) strategy to work out the legal regime established for air space, appropriate national security measures to so it is important for the future develop- minimize the possibility that space assets ment of space law to understand the com- might be compromised by the actions of plexities — from a jurisdictional, technical, other States. commercial, societal, cultural and security- Bearing in mind the rapid development of related perspective — that arise with respect space-related technology, and the legal chal- to the use and regulation of cyber space. lenges that this represents, it is pertinent to There are clear parallels between the two reflect on the fact that, in 2017, we celebrated regimes of outer space and cyber space, not the 50th anniversary5 of the first — and most only in considerations impacting on the significant — of the United Nations space law-making side, but also due to the seem- treaties, which is usually referred to as the ingly endless development of technology Outer Space Treaty.6 During that celebra- that results in the activities of these two tory year, this author was invited to give realms becoming ever more interdependent. a number of keynote speeches at various In many respects, they act together in the events to commemorate that important one ecosystem, each reliant on the other for event. In the course of preparing for those their respective efficient functioning, devel- speeches, this author had cause to look at opment and ongoing operational viability, an important collection of essays entitled not to mention the important associated Outlook on Space Law over the Next 30 Years, national security considerations. which was published on the occasion of the Indeed, it is increasingly necessary to 30th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty design space infrastructure with a clear ref- in 1997.7 erence to the cyber-related elements associ- It is interesting but perhaps not sur- ated with the implementation, utilization prising that, barely two-thirds of the way and application of that infrastructure. In through the second 30-year period following this regard, it is somewhat curious that, in the finalization of the treaty, virtually all of quite of number of countries, Governments the “possible”/“maybe”/“perhaps” innova- have devoted considerable resources towards tions in space canvassed in that book are the establishment of systems designed to already a reality or near reality, with some of protect the cyber capability and operations of that country, but have not perhaps been 5 The year 2017 was, of course, also another signifi- as cognizant to devise similar protective cant anniversary year — the 60th anniversary of the systems for their space assets. Sputnik 1 mission. Instead, a different mantra — one 6 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of involving the call for defensive space weap- States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, ons — seems to have been accepted as the including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies (Outer Space Treaty) 610 UNTS 205. most appropriate (and in some cases, only) 7 Crowther (1997).

72 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities them now part of mainstream space activi- ing to regulate for the “unknown,” which ties. brings with it another set of inherent risks.8 Another interesting observation is Rather, the most appropriate methodol- that — again not surprisingly — that book ogy for addressing these changes is to under- centres around the Outer Space Treaty stand the direction that they are taking and and the traditional actors involved in space to introduce frameworks with a sufficient activities. Whilst, of course, both the treaty degree of flexibility, so as to allow the and the existing space participants will con- broader principles to remain applicable to tinue to be very significant in the future new activities even if the express regulatory regulation of space, it is incumbent on us provisions for specific “new” space activities all to take a “holistic” view of how space are not always comprehensively articulated. inter-relates with every aspect of life and This indeed mirrors the “success” to date what this means in terms of constructing of the fundamental principles of space the most appropriate legal and regulatory law expressed in the Outer Space Treaty. frameworks going forward. These remain highly relevant and - foun Indeed, the dream of space, and the desire dational — perhaps even more so than of humankind to engage with space in more ever — these five decades later notwith- and more ways, has driven the development standing that we are now in a very differ- of space-related technology far more quickly, ent space “world.” In this author’s opinion, and in ways that would not have seemed those who express the view that the fun- imaginable even a few years ago. And, as damental principles of international space typifies much about the development of law are somehow outmoded or irrelevant legal rules in a sphere driven by technologi- are, in reality, frustrated that they are an cal innovation, space law has not, as noted “inconvenient” restriction to certain military above, kept pace with the multitude of space uses of outer space that violate the essence activities about which we can now marvel, of the way we are to operate in space. Such and therefore there might increasingly arise views are misguided and demonstrate a lack various concerns and uncertainties as to how of understanding of the complex history and best address the vast complexities that spe- geopolitical environment underpinning the cific uses of space may give rise to. development of international space law, as Nor, in this author’s opinion, should law well as the object and purpose of the United purport to keep pace with this technological Nations space treaties. change with respect to space, given that the The evolution of space activities since the developments are so rapid and fluid. Today’s days of Sputnik 1 — and the associated laws technology is often quite quickly rendered and guidelines that regulate those activi- obsolete (or at least insufficient) in tomor- ties — has seen a transformation from an row’s world. To assert, therefore, that the era where, initially, only two States domi- legal framework is completely up-to-date in nated the scene, to one where there are a every way is therefore misleading and may growing number of space-faring States even lead to complacency. Conversely, to attempt to provide for every conceivable future development might amount to seek- 8 See Freeland (2017b).

73 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities

(currently estimated to be around 60–70).9 entrepreneurs and smaller (and perhaps This, coupled with the exponential growth of nimbler) space entities. commercial opportunities, has historically Much has been written about this trend seen primarily large and well-funded com- towards the commercialization and privati- panies invest heavily in space technology, zation of space, and the increasingly impor- with a view to reaping significant economic tant role that non-governmental actors play, returns. not only to serve the needs and demands The beginning of the 1990s saw the of civil and commercial end users, but also commercialization of space really start to those of States and even military customers. expand rapidly. By 1998, the spend on com- These trends will, if anything, continue at mercial space had caught up to Governmen- an increasing scale given the trend towards tal space expenditure and, whilst both have the “democratization” of space as new actors grown rapidly since then, the commercial emerge due to developing technology. This sector now significantly exceeds the non- will, undoubtedly, present considerable commercial space sector in terms of invest- additional challenges to the overarching ment. In overall terms, it has been estimated ‘global commons’ legal characterization of that the total value of the global commercial space, and the principle of freedom of use space “industry” in 2018 was approximately of space,11 that stem from the fundamental US$385 billion (representing an annualized roots of space law.12 growth rate of 7% since 2005), and that this Innovations such as nano/small satellite figure is anticipated to grow exponentially technology and human aerospace flight will, to somewhere between US$1–3 trillion by ultimately, bring “space to more people” in 2040.10 Whatever the correct upper amount, a tangible way: through direct participation it is clear that the commercialization of and entrepreneurship. This is very impor- outer space is a powerful factor and a major tant since, perhaps not surprisingly, those growth area, rising at a much faster rate involved in the space regulatory “industry” than the overall global economy. have not “sold” the idea of space, and its The enticement of such significant significance to the general public, very effec- growth, together with the development of tively at all in the past. technology that enables and facilitates new As an example, just a few short years ago, and potentially lucrative opportunities in this author picked up a copy of the Wall space, appear to be an attractive proposition not only for the established space-related companies, but also for a new breed of space 11 Article I of the Outer Space Treaty provides in part as follows: “ … Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration 9 Of course, viewed from another perspective, this and use by all States without discrimination of any also means that approximately two-thirds of the kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with world’s countries do not have any indigenous space international law, and there shall be free access to capability whatsoever, placing them at an increasing all areas of celestial bodies. There shall be freedom comparative disadvantage over time and rendering of scientific investigation in outer space, including them entirely dependent on others for access to space the Moon and other celestial bodies, and States shall infrastructure. Obviously, this gives rise to sovereignty facilitate and encourage international cooperation in and national security concerns for those States. such investigation.” 10 See Higginbotham (2018). 12 See Freeland (2017c).

74 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities

Street Journal whilst in Canada and was sur- its economic, political or industrial cir- prised and initially delighted to see that the cumstances. In short, no longer is space a front page had an article about space law. “luxury” just for the space “haves:” it is now He was quickly brought down to Earth, so an imperative for all countries and repre- to speak, by the headline — “If a Martian sents an essential part of their vital infra- Wrecks Your Rocket Ship, Who is Liable?”13 structure. Appropriate “rules of the road” Is this really what people think about the are therefore necessary and the challenge is scope and importance of space law? Despite to ensure that these provide the best possi- everything that space-related technology ble way forward in the circumstances of an can and does do to raise the standard of ever-changing technological environment. living for the entirety of global humanity, is this the best that can be said about the laws How to address the major that make this possible? legal challenges It seems quite extraordinary in this day In view of this evolving situation, each and age that one great challenge for space country is, or should be, asking the same law has often been is to get people to questions: what does the development of actually take it seriously. Those of us who space technology mean for us? How can we have discussed with our respective Gov- maximise our ability to take advantage of ernments the need to establish rational, the use of space for our continuous develop- practical and appropriate legal and regula- ment? Do existing national laws or policies tory frameworks for the development of a unduly inhibit or restrict the development viable space industry at the national level of a viable and self-sustaining domestic have in the past sometimes been met with space “industry,” or can they be categorized counter-arguments stemming from inertia as “enabling”? What regulatory framework and conservatism, financial concerns, dif- is most appropriate for us in terms of our fering priorities and, unfortunately, a lack risk profile, capability, needs, culture, eco- of understanding. nomic circumstances, national security situ- This situation has now changed- some ation and strategic alliances? How can this what — although not universally — and the framework be constructed in a way that is truth of the matter is that space is, of course, adequately “future proofed” (if indeed this very real and not something to be derided or is at all possible)? ignored, but rather a vital element for the The answers for each country will be dif- very future of our life here on Earth (and ferent, but there is no mistaking the need perhaps beyond). No country can afford to to address the implications of our ongoing fall behind its friends and neighbours in development of space-related technology. relation to important aspects of its space They pose great opportunities but their development. management and regulation — both at the As noted, space impacts on every country international but, even more significantly, and must be embraced in the most appro- the national levels — raise difficult ques- priate way for each nation, irrespective of tions for all decision makers and for the creation of legal frameworks.

13 Hope (2015).

75 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities

As such, we are standing at the dawn tematically approach these challenges, we of a new era in space activities, which will must first understand the issues that they require very considerable thought as to give rise to: only then are we in a position to exactly how to adapt, and adopt, appropri- construct, through a cooperative and multi- ate legal frameworks that are able to strike disciplinary approach, the laws and stand- the most appropriate balance between ards that will allow humankind to maximise sometimes competing interests. There is an the benefits to be garnered from the explo- urgent need to comprehensively assess these ration and use of outer space. The position is challenges and to develop and design the so fast-moving and fluid, given the speed at structure and content of these frameworks. which innovation and technology develop, In order to be relevant, innovative and that it is neither possible nor appropriate sufficiently “forward-thinking” to properly to any longer attempt to rely exclusively on advance the field of space law, the devel- the traditional principles — as important as opment of these frameworks to meet the they will remain — that are to be found in challenges of the 21st century must incor- the United Nations space treaties. porate a comprehensive approach, break- Nor can we then rely on a simple “copy/ ing down the “silo” mentality that has tra- paste” transposition of terrestrial interna- ditionally characterized not only existing tional law principles to somehow fill the legal research, but also the current space gaps in the extra-terrestrial regulation of “law-making” and regulatory processes. activities that are clearly beyond the con- In essence, the challenge — indeed the templation of the original drafters of the imperative — is to develop legal and regu- United Nations space treaties. This author latory frameworks to properly address the has listened with interest to commentators demands and inevitability of technological who latch on to article III of the Outer Space innovation and an increasingly globalized Treaty14 — which provides that activities in and connected world, not the other way outer space shall be carried on in accord- around. ance with international law — and who This represents an enticing opportunity then make a quantum leap to their “eureka” for space lawyers to play an even greater role moment, to postulate that laws that were in the context of the so-called “NewSpace” developed on Earth for terrestrial activities phenomenon, by engaging more actively can somehow magically fit into the unique with new participants in space and therefore environment that is outer space. This is a advocating for appropriately balanced ena- seductive conclusion, but, in this author’s bling laws and legislation to allow for the opinion, far too simplistic to adequately most progressive path forward. It is not the time for detached and overly academic law- making, rather the future space law regimes 14 Article III of the Outer Space Treaty provides as must be closely integrated with and aligned follows: “States Parties to the Treaty shall carry on to the sheer breadth of influence and impact activities in the exploration and use of outer space, that space technology does and will assume. including the moon and other celestial bodies, in accordance with international law, including the There are other examples of legal chal- Charter of the United Nations, in the interest of main- lenges ahead for space law. In order to sys- taining international peace and security and promoting international co-operation and understanding.”

76 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities meet the realities. Square pegs do not seam- core they are merely guidelines or recom- lessly fit into round holes. mendations that do not necessarily have the With respect to perhaps two of the most force of law, unless they are to be regarded as pressing challenges for space law — the reflecting rules of customary international long-term sustainability of space, and the law, itself a very difficult assertion to sub- potential militarization/weaponization of stantiate in the absence of, say, a finding space — the existing terrestrial environ- to that effect by the International Court mental principles on the one hand,15 and of Justice.19 the laws of armed conflict on the other,16 Given our increasing reliance on such whilst relevant, are certainly not adequate or non-binding measures in a whole range of necessarily appropriate in various respects space-related matters, do we run the risk to meet the complexities that these issues that they will work only until they don’t? present. Both of these pressing questions Shouldn’t they always be regarded only as require specifically crafted legal rules that, interim measures, until traditional inter- even if they do draw on terrestrial law for national law principles can be agreed and some inspiration or comparison, are spe- applied? And, indeed, is this approach fea- cifically designed to meet the peculiarities sible given the multitude of concerns asso- that stem from our legal characterization of ciated with the continued development of outer space, as well as the complex non-legal space-related weapons technology, and the factors that impact and shape the broad environmental (and other) risks that they range of space activities. pose? The attempts to deal with these- chal Ideally, binding treaty norms should be lenges thus far have largely been exploratory, negotiated, to be adhered to in good faith by generalized, and on a non-binding and vol- all relevant States. Of course, in the absence untary basis. Whilst much has been made of of a change of approach between, in par- the importance of “soft law” instruments17 ticular, the major space powers, treaty rules in shaping the face of the space regulatory are unlikely to come to fruition in respect regime, this author has reservations as to of these issues in the short and perhaps whether such an approach serves us well in medium term. Instead, so-called non-bind- the longer term, particularly in relation to ing Transparency and Confidence Building such important issues in the context of our Measures (TCBMs) are articulated as the future uses of outer space and, indeed, in way forward and are expressed to be step- many respects, for the future survival of the ping-stones towards a more formally bind- human race.18 ing agreement. The risk is, of course, that Notwithstanding the legal “value” that some such instruments may have, at their 19 See a whole range of decisions at the Interna- 15 See, for example, Boyle (2013); Bohlmann & Free- tional Court of Justice on the issue of how to establish land (2013); Freeland & Lawler (2011). the existence of a rule of customary international law, beginning with the North Sea Continental Shelf 16 See, for example, Freeland & Gruttner (2020). Cases (Federal Republic of Germany v. Denmark and 17 Marboe (2012). Federal Republic of Germany v. The Netherlands) (Judgment) [1969] ICJ Rep 3. See also Jakhu, Freeland 18 Freeland (2011). & Chen (2018).

77 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities these binding arrangements never actually other significant issues that will require eventuate. careful consideration as to their ongoing This recourse to TCBMs may well rep- regulation. This section poses some ques- resent a realistic assessment with respect tions that arise in respect of each of these, to the difficulties in achieving a significant each of which will be relevant for future degree of mutual cooperation and the requi- lawmakers and policy designers. site degree of political (good)will to resolve This article has already made reference to any impasse in a more comprehensive way the increasing use of small, nano and micro but, in this author’s opinion, in the end, satellites. This technology may represent binding norms that also fashion and regu- an important precursor to the establish- late responsible behaviour by those engaged ment of indigenous and independent space in space activities will be crucial. programs in States that previously could This represents a major challenge ahead not have contemplated undertaking such for all who understand the role of law in activities. By eliminating some significant facilitating the peaceful and sustainable uses barriers to entry, small satellite technology of outer space in the future. But it is a goal may facilitate capacity building, broader towards which we must all strive: the fact collaborative opportunities, and educa- that we do not have such a comprehensive tion/training programs, as well as bridging treaty regime in relation to military uses of (some) technology gaps for hitherto non- outer space as yet does not mean it cannot space faring States. It will also open up even happen. In the meantime, academia, indus- more diverse commercial opportunities for try and other experts are engaged in research a much broader range of potential service that seek to articulate, at least in the view providers. of those involved, what they perceive to be It is perhaps appropriate to liken the the lex lata rules relating to the military uses potential of small satellites for space activ- of outer space.20 These are useful exercises ities to the way that mobile phones have although they can never, of course, represent revolutionized terrestrial communications a binding document to which States must activities. We simply do not know where comply for fear of be subject to sanctions this technology might ultimately lead and under the principles of general international what it will allow us to do. However, we can law. confidently expect that it will open the door to an even more expansive array of com- Other significant legal challenges mercial opportunities. Apart from the two major challenges to This inevitably represents some signifi- space law in the future that have been cant challenges to space law. For example, referred to above, there are a number of what is the impact of this technology for the space “market”? What forms of legal and 20 See, for example, the work undertaken in the regulatory frameworks are necessary to bal- 3-year project entitled Manual on International Law ance the interests of a particular State with Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space (MILAMOS), the demands of entrepreneurs? How will a research project led by McGill University in Canada, and involving experts from 22 countries of the world: existing space actors react to the potentially available at https://www.mcgill.ca/milamos/ (accessed new range of participants that this technol- 30 March 2020).

78 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities ogy will allow for? Should the governing who would take responsibility — and legal regime encourage or discourage this how — for the governance structures and evolution towards a multitude of space legal principles that will be needed.22 In this actors? What role does/should law have regard, one will need to examine the scope in facilitating the commercial possibilities and legal/regulatory implications of, for offered by low-cost satellites? How do we example, proposals to (re)define the areas deal with the prospect of so-called “mega- of air space and outer space into distinct constellations” of small satellites, whose zones corresponding to differing uses of (planned) number will quite quickly dwarf space-related and high-altitude technology the number of space objects launched in the (drones, balloons, other high-altitude plat- six decades from the time of Sputnik 1?21 forms, air travel, aerospace flights, subor- As noted earlier, there has developed an bital flights, orbital flights, space stations, important cross-fertilization of activities permanent human settlements etc)? in outer space with those in cyber space. In In the area of geo-politics, strategic space, this regard, it is no surprise that many of and transparency and confidence build- the major digital platform companies have ing measures (TCBMs), must we really be now expressed significant interest, and required to think of space in terms of that invested large sums of money, towards an now well-worn mantra — that it is “con- incorporation/expansion of their existing tested, congested and competitive” — or operations with additional space activities. is there another theme(s) towards which This is sometimes referred to as the “GAFTA future space law should be directed?23 How phenomenon” (Google, Amazon, Facebook, can the regulatory framework minimise/ Twitter, Apple). mitigate the threat of conflict involving How should the recent interest shown the space ambitions of States? How can by major digital platform operators be we ensure that all ‘voices’ relating to space regulated in the space sector? Will there are heard, not just those that loudly advo- be a major convergence between digital cate for its designation as a “war fighting content and the space industry? How can/ domain”? In this author’s opinion, such calls should law react to, and properly regulate are dangerously self-fulfilling and largely this rush towards the digitization of com- self-defeating: all States, particularly the mercial space? major space-faring ones, will suffer if activi- Another challenge that arises is the devel- ties in space are undertaken in such an irre- opment of aerospace technology and the sponsible manner as to cross certain “red legal regulation of human aerospace and lines” of accepted behaviour.24 space flight. Much discussion is required And, of course, no overview of the chal- about the future legal regulation of these lenges facing space law would be complete activities and, equally importantly, about without a consideration of the potential for the commercial exploitation of the natural 21 In this regard, one of the major private entities engaged in proposals to launch many hundreds of small satellites has recently announced significant 22 See Freeland (2010). funding problems that will, at least in the short- 23 See Freeland (2018a). medium term, most likely curb its activities somewhat; see Amos (2020). 24 See Freeland (2018b).

79 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities resources of outer space. As is well known, These are but a few of the imposing chal- the United States Congress passed the Space lenges ahead for space law. The existing Resource Exploration and Utilization Act regulatory regime has largely served us well of 2015. Shortly afterwards, Luxembourg and, in many respects, has been remarkably enacted its own national legislative frame- successful. But the “spacescape” is chang- work25 that encourages and promotes space ing very quickly, driven by this bewildering resource exploitation and utilization. It technological maelstrom that, over the last seems apparent that other States, such as five years or so (and certainly for the next the UAE,26 may also follow on this path. period of time), has far surpassed the already These national law developments have rapid evolution in space-related technology highlighted some thorny legal issues but that began at the beginning of the space race. have also brought to the forefront intense geopolitical disagreement at the United Two important “takeaways:” Nations discussion level.27 Even putting principles of humanity and stewardship those aside, how will technology ultimately We thus find ourselves in “interesting enable this commercial exploitation to take times.” The need for a more comprehensive place? Is there a potential legal/regulatory and detailed legal/regulatory framework model that will adequately support these for outer space represents one of the most activities, particularly in light of the uncer- politicized and complex challenges ahead tainties that some express with respect to for our, and future generations. All stake- the interpretation of the relevant principles holders need to work together to find a path of the treaty regime?28 forward, in order to meet the challenges. The existing international regulatory framework, whilst important, cannot alone stand up to 25 See https://spaceresources.public.lu/en.html (accessed 30 March 2020). the complexities that the ever-increasing range of space activities — and the possibili- 26 See UAE Space Law Details Announced to Facili- tate Space Sector Development, https://spacewatch. ties that still lie before us — impose. global/2020/02/uae-space-law-details-announced- The opportunity presents for Govern- to-facilitate-space-sector-development/ (accessed 2 ments, industry, scientists, entrepreneurs April 2020). and civil society to work together to develop 27 A current (since 2017) item on the agenda of the appropriate future legal frameworks that Legal Sub-Committee (LSC) of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space supplement and compliment the robust (UNCOPUOS) is “General exchange of views on foundational principles that underpin how potential legal models for activities in exploration, space has “worked.” exploitation and utilization of space resources.” In addition, in June 2019, UNCOPUOS Member States This leads to probably the two most agreed to convene “scheduled informal discussions” of important considerations this author can the exploration, exploitation and utilization of space offer. How should the societal, community resources, which were convened for the 2020 LSC and human impacts of our inexorable march session — this has been cancelled due to the current coronavirus situation and most likely will commence into space be measured? Why has there in 2021. been so little work done so far as regards 28 See, for example, Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, which provides: “Outer space, including the national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

80 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Freeland — The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities the human rights aspects of the explora- In this regard, law will therefore con- tion and use of outer space?29 What legal tinue to play a crucial role. But lawyers cer- and regulatory regimes best protect the tainly cannot do this on their own. They broader interests of society without unduly simply do not have the tools to do so. All restricting the development of appropriate relevant stakeholders must exchange ideas, space activities in the future? And, indeed, knowledge and expertise, and understand what are the criteria by which we are to how each can contribute to an appropri- determine the priorities as to what consti- ate future where space continues to play a tutes “appropriate” future space activities? vital role in the activities of humankind. In What role does law play in fashioning these the end, these discussions will be the most choices? important way in which all of the exciting Furthermore, as we develop frameworks innovations and developments that we all to address these legal challenges, we must dream about can best be advanced. always remain cognizant of the “stewardship” role we, as human beings, have in the way References we manage our ongoing relationship with Amos, J. (2020) “Coronavirus: OneWeb space. Our responsibilities in this regard blames pandemic for collapse,” BBC News, 28 March 2020: available at https://www.bbc. extend not just to ourselves, but to future com/news/science-environment-52070949 generations.30 It is incumbent on us, and (accessed 30 March 2020). imperative for the future of humanity, that Bohlmann, U. & Freeland, S. (2013) “The we do not repeat some of the mistakes we regulation of space activities and the space have made on Earth that threaten our abil- environment” in Alam, S., Bhuiyan, Md. J. ity to coexist here into the very long term. H., Chowdhury, T. M. R., & Techera, E. J. (eds), Routledge Handbook of International In answering these questions, it is impor- Environmental Law; Routledge, UK, 375-391. tant that, at all times, we are conscious Boyle, A. (2013) “Outer space and international of, and adhere to, the core principles of environmental law,” in Hobe, S. & Freeland, “humanity” that underpin space law, in S. (eds) In Heaven as on Earth? The Interaction order to avoid the possibility of scenarios of Public International Law on the Legal Regulation of Outer Space; Deutsches Centrum that do not bear contemplation. In the end, für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V., Bonn, the principle of humanity must be the bed- Germany 51–60. rock of all global legal regimes, including Crowther, D. (ed) (1997) Outlook on Space Law the regulation of the exploration and use over the Next 30 Years, Brill, The Netherlands. of outer space. Freeland, S. (2010) “Fly me to the Moon? How will international law cope with commercial space tourism?” Melbourne Journal of International Law, 11:1, 90–118. 29 See Marboe (2013); Freeland & Ram Jakhu (2014). Freeland, S. (2011) “For better or for worse? The use of ‘soft law’ within the international 30 This obligation is already reflected in Article 4(1) of the Agreement Governing the Activities of legal regulation of outer space;” Annals of Air States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (Moon and Space Law, XXXVI, 409–445. Agreement) 1363 UNTS 3, to which Australia is a State Freeland, S. & Lawler, D. (2011) “Whose mess Party, although it must also be noted that there are is it anyway? Regulating the environmental currently only 18 States Parties to this instrument, consequences of commercial launch none of which are considered as “major” space powers; see Hobe et al. (2013).

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activities;” Proceedings of the International Freeland, S. & Gruttner, E. (2020) “Critical Institute of Space Law, 54, 318–326. issues in the regulation of armed conflict Freeland, S. & Ram Jakhu, S. (2014) “What’s in outer space,” in Linton, S., McCormack, human rights got to do with outer space? T. & Sivakumaran, S. (eds), Asia-Pacific Everything!”; Proceedings of the International Perspectives on International Humanitarian Law; Institute of Space Law, 57, 365–380. Cambridge University Press, UK, 180–195. Freeland, S. (2017a) Common heritage, not Hardin, G. (1968) The tragedy of the common law: how international law will commons; Science, 162, 1243–1248. regulate proposals to exploit space resources; Higginbotham, B. (2018) “The space economy: Questions of International Law, 35, 19–33. an industry takes off,” and the various Freeland, S. (2017b) “International law and industry reports referenced in that article: the exploration and use of outer space” in available at https://www.uschamber.com/ Ambrus, M., Rayfuse, R. & Werner, W. (eds) series/above-the-fold/the-space-economy- Risk and the Regulation of Uncertainty in industry-takes (accessed 30 March 2020). International Law; Oxford University Press, Hobe, S., Jakhu, R., Freeland, S., Tronchetti, F. UK, 77–96. & Stubbe, P. (2013) “The Moon Agreement”, Freeland, S. (2017c) “Australia and in Hobe, S., Schmidt-Tedd B. & Schrogl international space law,” in Rothwell D. R. K. W. (eds), Cologne Commentary on Space & Crawford C. (eds), International Law in Law, Volume II — Rescue Agreement, Liability Australia (3rd ed); Thomson Reuters, Australia, Convention, Registration Convention, Moon 507–533. Agreement, 325–426. Freeland, S. (2018a) “The US plan for a space Hope, B. (2015) “If a Martian wrecks your force risks escalating a ‘Space Arms Race’”; rocket ship, who is liable? Ask a ‘Space The Conversation, 10 August 2018: available at Attorney’”, The Wall Street Journal, 20 March https://theconversation.com/the-us-plan-for- 2015, 1. a-space-force-risks-escalating-a-space-arms- Jakhu, R., Freeland, S. & Chen, K. W. (2018) race-101368 (accessed 30 March 2020). “The sources of international space law: Freeland, S. (2018b) “Why we should not revisited;” German Journal of Air and Space assume that war in space is inevitable;” 17:3 Law, 67(4), 606–667. Room: The Space Journal, 17:3, 89–92. Marboe, I. (2012) (ed), Soft Law in Outer Freeland, S. & Jakhu, R. (2018) “Promoting Space: The Function of Non-binding Norms in peace from above? Utilising space for the International Space Law, Bohlau Publishing, prevention and prosecution of human rights Vienna, Austria. violations,” in Kerkonian A. D. (ed), Global Marboe, I. (2013) “Human rights Space Governance and the UN 2030 Agenda; considerations for space activities,” in Hobe, McGill University, Canada, 21–32. S. & Freeland, S. In Heaven as on Earth? The Freeland, S. (2019) “From little things, big Interaction of Public International Law on the things grow: how should we regulate the Legal Regulation of Outer Space, Deutches commercial utilization of small satellite Centrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V., technology?”, in Kyriakopoulos G. D. & Bonn, Germany 135–145. Manoli M. (eds), The Space Treaties at Crossroads: Considerations de Lege Ferenda; Springer, Switzerland, 65–78.

82 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 83–86. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010083-04

Military and geopolitical challenges in space

Ben Piggott UNSW Canberra Space Email: [email protected]

y1 duty here today is to talk about the place in Mike Pence’s speech at the Inter- M5% of the time that we think maybe national Astronautics Congress (IAC) in space won’t work. It’s a pleasure to be here 2019, but it’s actually a little bit older than this morning in such esteemed company, but that. And Kerrie highlighted some of the especially can I say welcome to the under- roots of different country’s space programs grads in the room. Some of the challenges and humanity’s progress in space, it sort of we’re going to talk about today are yours stems from a lot of strategic competition and mine to solve over the next few years.2 and from defence purposes. James Doolittle I have some initial thoughts on where we was one of the earliest thinkers on that topic are in a military and geopolitical context back in 1958. But I think that it’s important and how we got here, and the direction that to consider that that rhetoric wouldn’t be some loud voices are moving in. And high- out of place today. So I’m not sure if space light some of the tools that we might think is more militarised today or if space is just about as we decide what being a responsi- bigger. It has always been a place for stra- ble space player looks like for Australia and tegic competition between nations since move forwards in that direction. Sputnik 1 in 1957. There was an element of So Her Excellency, the Governor, men- strategic competition between the great tioned that space is becoming more milita- powers at the time. rised. Since the motto of the Royal Society As the commercial ecosystem in space is to question everything, I want to think has grown, public knowledge around what about that. Is space more militarised? happens in that domain and what’s going There’s certainly more military stuff in on there has grown. I think we are more space. But there’s a lot more of everything conscious today of some of the military and in space today then there was 50 years ago. geopolitical aspects of the space domain. So this quote3 wouldn’t have been out of And strategic competition has upsides. We wouldn’t have some of the technologies we 1 The following opinions and analysis are my own have today, like GPS or some of the Earth and do not reflect the official position of the Depart- observation technologies, without those ment of Defence, the University of New South Wales or the Institute for Regional Security. technologies first finding a purpose in defence and strategic competition. If we 2 This is an edited version of the transcript of Dr Piggott’s talk. didn’t have Earth observation, we wouldn’t have found out about climate change. 3 “We, the United States of America, can be first. If we do not expend the thought, the effort, and the money required, then another and more progressive Doolittle led the eponymous Dolittle raid, and subse- nation will. They will dominate space, and they will quently worked in the US space program in its infancy. dominate the world” — James Doolittle, 1958. (James He was a contemporary of Goddard’s and von Braun’s.)

83 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Piggott — Military and geopolitical challenges in space

A few people have touched on strategy Force managed space capability develop- and what it means to be strategic. And what ment. Mike Pence has directed NASA to I am going to talk about now is what that return to the Moon by 2024 and some of the looks like for some of the major powers. But people that I’ve spoken to in NASA see that first I think it’s important to talk about what timeframe as a bit challenging. To wrap all strategy actually is. Because it’s not about that together at IAC we saw a real tension winning.4 It’s about attaining continuous between different parts of the American advantage, and when we see something like leadership between what American domi- space, which is a limited resource, we often nance looks like and what role there is for see competition for that resource between international partners in the role for the different groups of people. So it’s important United States and space. Jim Bridenstine, to remember that we’re not talking about the NASA Administrator, spoke about the a particular end state, we’re talking about importance of international partnerships. planning for continuous advantage. What So there’s a real lesson there about — that’s does that mean to a few different countries? peculiar to the United States in terms of We have heard some rhetoric that most what people at the working level think of you will be familiar with from the Vice about international collaboration. President of the United States at the IAC. Russia’s another country that’s reorgan- I think that what Space Command said is ised its defence apparatus to better lever- sort of a little bit more moderate in terms age the space domain. There are a couple of their outlook,5 but there’s a range of opin- of quotes from Russian Military doctrine, ions in the United States, from an America that’s a little bit long in the tooth now First sort of point of view to a more moder- and some more recent comments from the ate point of view that recognises the impor- Defence Minister.6 So they’ve gone the oppo- tance of space to all of those national enter- site direction from a space force. They’ve prises, to a realm for competition between wrapped some of their space elements up the United States and other great powers. So with some other air defence assets because I think that quote’s really powerful in being they see some synergies there that are going a 2019 version of what General Doolittle was to help them better secure space for Russia. talking about back in the ’50s. I think it’s important to highlight that the The idea of space force is not as new as Russian Military sees warfare as a contest Donald Trump. That idea has its genesis for information over a number of domains in some law-makers in the United States without often clear boundaries, which is before he appeared from some people a little bit different from speaking about who were unhappy with how the US Air space as a war fighting domain. So there are some differences in approach between 4 “Strategy is not about winning … Strategy, in its simplest form, is a plan for attaining continuing advantage” — Everett Dolman, 2004. 6 “The securing of supremacy on land, at sea, and 5 “The U.S. must recognize that space will be a major in the air and outer space will become decisive fac- engine of national political, economic, and military tors in achieving objectives” — Russian Military power for whichever nations best organize and oper- Doctrine, 2010. And “[There has been a] shift in the ate to exploit that potential.” — USAF Space Com- combat centre of gravity towards the aerospace thea- mand, 2019. tre” — Sergei Shoigu (Russian Defence Minister), 2015.

84 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Piggott — Military and geopolitical challenges in space

Russia and the United States, and you can implications are there, I think it’s important see how they’re organising for best effect. to remember that there are other ways of When we talk about whether space force organising that are maybe not so bombastic, is a good thing, whether it’s ethical, what the that we need to give equal consideration to.

Reversible Non-Reversible

Cyber Attack

Directed RF Jamming Energy Laser Laser Space Dazzling Blinding Domain Awareness Co-Orbital ASAT Rendezvous and Proximity Operations Direct Ascent ASAT

Finally, China. Chinese strategic writing So I will leave you with Figure 1 where emphasises that space is essential to oper- I’m going to talk about some of the actual ating in the other domains, and the same tools and systems that give Steven and me report from US Air Force Space Command pause when we think about what people can is explicit about calling out China and their do in space. Space domain awareness on the long-term strategy for displacing the United left-hand side does what it says on the tin, States.7 The Chinese Academy of Military that’s understanding what’s happening in Sciences talks about fighting a quick war as space, where spacecraft are, what they’re one of the characteristics of space operations doing. Without that, you can’t achieve any and they see that as essential to their abil- of those other effects if space turns into a ity to deter their adversaries geopolitically.8 war-fighting domain, that you can see over The People’s Liberation Army, of course, on the right-hand side. So the first thing I has organised a strategic support force that want to talk about is cyberattacks. I’m not wraps up space, cyber and electronic warfare a cyber expert, but I don’t think it’s news to capabilities in the People’s Liberation Army. anyone that spacecraft and ground stations So it’s a third, different again example of a are vulnerable to cyber effects. The second Military space organisation. thing is a sort of spectrum from radio frequency jamming to directed energy weap- 7 “China is executing a long-term strategy with the ons. We see in the public domain that the explicit aim of displacing the U.S. as the leading space Defence Intelligence Agency commented power” — USAF Space Command, 2019. this year on some Chinese satellite com- 8 “Whoever controls space controls the Earth” — Chi- munication jammers over a range of fre- na’s Academy of Military Sciences, 2013.

85 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Piggott — Military and geopolitical challenges in space quency bands. And it won’t be news to any The two final points on Figure are about co- of you that those are frequency bands that orbital anti-satellite weapons and direct- are pretty commonly used across the mili- ascent anti-satellite weapons. If you can tary and civilian sectors. We also see from do rendezvous and proximity operations, the Defence Intelligence Agency that GPS there’s no reason you can’t put bombs on jammers have been deployed in the Spratly satellites and drive them around in orbit. Islands and the Chinese have published sci- And we’ve seen direct-ascent, anti-satel- entific papers on laser blinding techniques lite (ASAT) tests from, most recently, India, and successfully did that against one of their but also China, Russia and the United States. own satellites in 2013. And if anyone’s looking for more informa- That brings me to my second point. tion on any of those things, two reports from There’s another spectrum there between the Center for Strategic and Independent laser dazzling and laser blinding. We’re Studies9 and our friends at the Secure World talking about a spectrum from reversible Foundation are excellent resources to get to non-reversible effects here. So the same more awareness about that. laser that you can use at a lower power setting to dazzle a satellite, you can amp up References the power and burn out the charge-coupled Dolman, Everett C. (2004), Pure Strategy: Power device (CCD) camera. and Principle in the Space and Information Age, Cass, New York. Finally I want to talk about rendezvous- Doolittle, James (1958) Hearings Before the and-proximity operations. That bleeds into Special Committee on Space and Astronautics, space domain awareness because all three of U.S. Senate, May. those countries have demonstrated rendez- Harrison, Todd, Johnson, Kaitlyn, and vous-and-proximity operations programs. Roberts, Thomas G. (2019) Space Threat That’s about driving satellites around in Assessment 2019, Center for Strategic and Independent Studies, Washington DC, April. orbit to go and check out other satellites https://www.csis.org/analysis/space-threat- and see what they’re doing. There are a assessment-2019 number of applications for that from intel- Weeden, Brian, and Samson, Victoria (ed.) ligence to verifying arms control treaties, (2019) Global Counterspace Capabilities: An to removing debris in space. Having that Open-Source Assessment, Secure World Foundation, Broomfield, Colorado, April. capability is essential to all of those things, and not all of those are military purposes. 9 Harrison, Johnson, and Roberts, 2019, and Weeden and Samson, 2019.

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Ethical challenges in space: norms and conventions for peaceful spacefaring

Nikki Coleman Senior Chaplain Ethicist (SQNLDR), RAAF Email: [email protected]

embers of the Society and the Acad- have. Realistically it is ensuring that what Memies, distinguished guests, it’s an we do in space is not just legal but is also absolute honour to be here today to talk ethical. It’d be great if it could be both. It’s to some fantastically curious minds.1 This also important that we look at what is ethi- is the speed-dating version of space ethics. cal, not just for now, but for future genera- These are my opinions and not the opinions tions. When we were talking about going of the particular organisations that I work to Mars earlier, I was really excited because for. In 2020, I will be the Senior Ethicist for there’s actually a conference in Adelaide in the Air Force with a mandate to work in a couple of weeks’ time looking at radiologi- space ethics and even then my opinions will cal protection and going to Mars. They’ve be my own as well. got me coming in to talk about the ethical What is space ethics? I had a lovely expe- implications around some of those things. rience with a 14-year-old girl: I go and do a For example, around genetic changes that lot STEM things — people were talking ear- might happen to people in space. So it’s lier about how we do training. I’d like to say about our future generations as well. all of us in this room have a responsibility to A second example, which has been dis- get young people excited about science and cussed today, is space debris. I’m sure you are space: I go into high schools and I talk about all concerned about climate change and the the ethics of what they’re looking at, and problems that are associated with that on get young people to talk about those sorts Earth. It’s an awful situation that we actu- of things. My favourite story is of a 14-year- ally need to work on now. That keeps many old girl who, when the teacher introduced people in the world up at night. You should me, said, “Oh you’re a space ethicist, is that also be awake worrying about space debris, like a real job?” I’d just like to say when the let me tell you. Much of our lives revolve Governor today mentioned space ethics, I around the use of satellites, particularly in was sitting up the back going, “It’s a real job.” low-Earth orbit. One of the concerns around What is space ethics? Obviously space space debris is that we will get to something ethics is looking at the ethical implications called the Kessler syndrome which is a cas- of what we do in space and also within the cade effect of many different accidents (or space industry potentially on Earth and potentially formed on purpose) and there potentially about the future plans that we is a concern that it might actually make an entire area of Earth not able to be used. The 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of idea of Elon Musk putting 40,000 CubeSats Dr Coleman’s talk. up keeps me awake at night.

87 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Coleman — Ethical challenges in space: norms and conventions for peaceful spacefaring

One of the other areas that we’ve talked ISIS or rogue nations, who could actually about today is Earth observation. It was use space against us. We rely on space for so great to hear of Planet [?]: they do some much of our lives: for communication, for really interesting work. They actually map navigation, for financial markets, for food the work, take photos of the Earth every 24 distribution systems. If those things went, hours and they make those images available if we lost low-Earth orbit and we lost the to humanitarian groups, for example, who use of those satellites, then our lives would can track when refugees are being moved go back to the 1950s, and a lot of you might or when there’s problems with particular remember that better than me, but it actu- crops, for example. They do a wonderful ally would have a huge impact on a very large job. But they are in the process of making number of vulnerable people in society. And money and I once asked them some really it raises other bigger issues, ethical questions awkward questions such as, “Will you sell regarding space. For example, it’s been won- your data to anyone?” And they were, like, derful that we’ve actually talked about the “Well, we’ve got to make money, of course indigenous use of space, but there’s not a lot we’ll sell it to anyone”. I’m, like, “Okay, let of discussion being had, apart from Alice me put the ethicist hat on for a moment. Gorman, about the impact on indigenous Would you sell it to a rogue nation who communities on the use of space all around wants to invade Australia?” and they were, the world. Because often these space launch like, “Oh, well, you know, we’d have to think facilities are put in locations that actually about that.” Okay. “Would you sell it to the kick indigenous people off their land, who drug cartels who want to try and work out take away their livelihood — there’s been a from looking at mapping data about how long history of this. their competition is actually moving drugs It’s really great, however, to see two very around in another area?” One of the con- positive, ethical space stories. The two that cerns that I have is that we talk about space I’d just like to highlight with you are Rocket being available for all, and that’s actually a Labs in New Zealand and Equatorial Launch really noble aim, but there are some groups in Australia. Both of those groups have actu- that we actually don’t want to have easy ally looked very carefully at the impact that access to space and potentially use space in they could potentially have on indigenous a nefarious way against us and potentially people. And it’s just not a tick-a-box, “Oh against future generation as well. yes, we’ve talked to the local people”, they Which leads me to my next point. A lot are actually working on meaningful, long- of my research is on space terrorism, and, term partnerships so that each group is let me tell you, I would not recommend this learning from each other. as an area of research to go into because There are many wonderful uses of space, every time I fly to America, I am randomly some of which we’ve heard about today. For selected when I go through the security line. example, going back to the Moon and going I would not recommend it. But, I and my onto Mars. Or constellations of small Cube- team have looked at — spent far too much Sats that could actually bring the internet time looking at — how nefarious groups to large groups of people, for example, in whether they be non-state groups such as India and Africa, similar to the Google

88 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Coleman — Ethical challenges in space: norms and conventions for peaceful spacefaring

Zoom Project. There are many wonder- space is becoming increasingly congested, ful ways in which space can be used, but contested and competitive. Right now we I think all of us have a responsibility — to need strong laws and we need a strong body the present, to future generations and also to be able to enforce laws that relate to space to our planet — to actually ask the ethical operations in low-Earth orbit, all the way up questions about how this could potentially to asteroid mining. There are huge ramifica- be used in a more nefarious way or have tions if we get this wrong. Just recently an unintended consequences. Because some- Israeli company put something on the Moon, times those unintended consequences, such accidentally crashed it into the Moon, but as the Americans giving blankets to the it actually contained organisms, organisms indigenous people, can wipe out an entire in amber, organisms called water bears (or group of people. And we have to think care- tardigrades), which can actually survive in fully about how we utilise the resources that these sorts of environments. The Israelis we’ve got. hadn’t told anybody that this was on their Thankfully we have some really great payload. They added it as a secondary pay- people working on this. You’ll be pleased load to another launch. So my concern is to know that Australia is one of the leaders that we have laws, but we need to ensure in space ethics, and in the area of military they’re actually enforced. Not just so that space ethics we are actually the world lead- we can have red tape and bureaucracy and ers, which is really encouraging. give bureaucrats jobs, but so that we actually Lastly, one of the things that concerns make the environment here on Earth and me — and I have to be guilty and say I’ve in space safer for now and also for future used the “wild west” phrase before and I need generations. to make sure I don’t say it anymore — is that

89 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 90–93. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010090-04

The promise and peril of space: viewing space through the media

Jonathan Webb Science Editor, ABC, Sydney Email: [email protected]

’d also like to acknowledge that we’re on Event Horizon of a black hole. I actually IGadigal country. When you work in the covered the Event Horizon Telescope back business of science storytelling, science is in 2015 for the BBC and they said then that pretty broad. There’s a lot to cover. But there the picture would be out in 2017, so it was are a couple of topic areas that feel like big- another two years after that. We knew it was ticket items, that seem to have really broad coming, but it was 11:30 p.m. when the story appeal and to cut through with a wide vari- actually broke. I was in the newsroom help- ety of people. One of them is dinosaurs, and ing to get it up on the website and go home. the other one is space.1 It actually broke just before midnight, got We’re going to leave dinosaurs to one about 50,000 views even before midnight side today and I would like to try and ask and then next day’s news agenda got a bit what it is that makes space so appealing for of a shake-up. But the next morning Scott people, from my perspective of our audience, Morrison called the election. looking at a couple of the stories that have cut through and why, based on some of the coverage and content making that I’ve seen happen at the ABC in the last year or so. The three kind of themes that I think are part of that appeal are, first,mystery and danger; second, the thrill of exploration; and, third, flat-out, good old wonder. Mystery and danger Starting with mystery and with danger, it Figure 1 doesn’t get much more mysterious than black holes. I’d be very surprised if you Our news site published eight or nine differ- haven’t already seen the picture, of a black ent stories about the election that Thursday, hole (Figure 1), because it was pretty ines- we did two stories on the black hole, unu- capable at the end of April, 2019, when it sual for a science story. We’re not normally was revealed by the Event Horizon Tele- called upon to do a follow up, we just do one scope. It was our first actual image of the and get it out there. You can guess who won in the page views. Nine or ten stories about 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of the election, two about this iconic brand Dr Webb’s talk. new image of a black hole and that’s where

90 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Webb — The promise and peril of space: viewing space through the media all the attention was, it wasn’t even a contest. that really seemed to connect with people And it wasn’t a slow news day either. Julian the most. So people are genuinely, and I Assange was arrested that day and Geof- think justifiably, intrigued by this idea of frey Rush won his defamation court case as space rocks that may be out there and do well. Sorry Julian, sorry Geoffrey, you were occasionally come quite close by and what third and fourth place respectively. I think are we going to do about them. And the that speaks to something because there is podcast interviewed someone whose actual not really a more mysterious frontier than job title is Planetary Defence Officer at the Event Horizon and suddenly we were NASA, who talked about the fact that there looking at it and no one could look any- are not enough eyes on the sky in the South- where else. In fact one of my colleagues on ern Hemisphere, and so there’s a bit of a the news desk, Riley, observed that it was blind spot in terms of asteroids coming at us. pretty obvious looking at the results from the website, that Australians would rather Exploration stare into the void than think about another Apart from mystery and danger, there’s a Federal election. very different type of engagement as well, There’s also a bit of a sense from black which is a bit more relevant to some of the holes of danger. We all know that if you other themes of the Forum, and that’s of fall across that horizon, you’re not coming exploration. In 2019 there was the anniver- back, and there is this sense of peril as well,. sary of the Apollo 11 landing and everyone Another aspect of the appeal of space actu- generated content about the first Moon ally usually plays out through a different landing. Program stories, the works, but type of story: the often feared and discussed actually nothing that we did, at least in my asteroid impact, usually illustrated with unit, got quite as much traction as the black varying degrees of verisimilitude. hole image. I think everyone knew what was I don’t know if anyone saw an asteroid happening because it was on every single story in the Daily Express recently, I don’t outlet and website and so on, but I think it’s even know what’s going on in that one. I the newer frontiers that make people even might need an asteroid physicist to explain more excited and they were really interested to me if that’s even possible. But there’s defi- in the Apollo landings. But there was no nitely an appeal or an attraction, a hook in single piece of content that totally blew eve- that sense of danger. And in fact, arguably ryone away because I guess we were retelling I would think there’s something to that, it’s the story for people like me who weren’t not unreasonable. Because even when you alive when it happened. I loved it. I got to present stories about asteroid impacts in a feel really up close to those events for the fairly reasonable, sensible straightforward first time. manner they really do connect. We did a When we start crossing those frontiers three-part series on science fiction, our pro- again, going back to the Moon and the first gram and podcast at ABC Radio National, time anyone sets foot on Mars, that will be earlier in 2019. There were three different an unmissable story that will blow whatever types of apocalypse but it was the second, election is being called that day completely about the possibility of an asteroid impact, out of the water.

91 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Webb — The promise and peril of space: viewing space through the media

But the other aspect of the thrill of explo- website at the ABC through 2018 show there ration or even engaging with space that I are some days that are a bit higher than think really gets people’s attention — apart others where we put out more stories or from the progress, the boot prints on the whatever, but there’s one big spike, sort of Moon — is the actual mechanics. The prac- towers over the others, and we only put one tical aspects of how we do it, because the story up that day. Can anyone remember scale is not like anything else that we really what happened towards the end of July in try to do. This is a story I’ve wanted to 2018? There was an eclipse. No new findings. tell for a really long time: I got to ride on It wasn’t the black hole image (which was a ridiculous piece of equipment, which is also a very big spike along those lines), but the Stratospheric Observatory for Infra- this was actually the longest lunar eclipse red Astronomy. It’s a telescope on a plane that we’ll get this century. And earlier in that NASA was planning and building for the year we had changed stat systems so I a long time. They now run it together with can’t put it in the same graph. There was the German space agency, DLR, and it does another spike that was even bigger and that astronomy at about 40,000 feet through an was for when we actually had two eclipses open door. It was a real privilege to tell that in the same year; most of that traffic comes story and I wrote up their observation of an from search. It comes from people typing occultation, a particular type of eclipse, and into Google the fact that there’s an eclipse people loved it. We got comments that that happening and they want to know where it radio program was half an hour of radio that is, how they can see it and what’s going on. felt like five minutes. We got people writing These are big events for people, and in saying, “That’s the best news story I’ve it’s news to me as someone who thinks of ever read on the ABC website,” and I was himself as a hard-nosed news journalist by pretty pleased with the job that we’ve done training, used to getting a bit sniffy about of it, but the credit I don’t think belongs to eclipses because they happen all the time me. Because what they were engaging with and they’re not that interesting for scien- was the fact that NASA has a telescope on tists. But people really do care about them, a plane and they use it to chase shadows, and look for them online, and if we can which is ridiculous. I think those mind- give them the information that they need, boggling aspects of the actual technology it works for us. and the mechanics of the way that we either Another thing I thought was going to be explore or do science about space are actu- a little bit naff was when we worked with ally a significant hook for people. Brad Tucker at the ANU to do a big stunt during a live star-gazing TV show, where Wonder we hoped to get as many people as possible Finally, though, I mentioned above that just all looking at the sky at once. Sure enough, old-fashioned, flat-out wonder is another despite my reservations, we smashed the really important, appealing thing about world record and people turned out in their space that we shouldn’t forget. Several thousands to just get a telescope out and months of daily web traffic to all of the sci- they weren’t looking at an unusual event, ence content that my team puts up on the they were just looking at the Moon. But we

92 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Webb — The promise and peril of space: viewing space through the media had more people looking at the same object in the science unit from someone who had than had ever happened before, as clocked listened to this and was moved enough by the Guinness Book of Records. There’s to write in. What Matthew said was this, something about that straightforward sense “Thank you very much for the great work. of wonder that you can also share with I’ve just gone and bought a telescope and people because people were doing this with I’m going to use it to look at the stars with their families and their kids, and that really, my son, who’s currently so small that all he really resonates. So old fashioned wonder can do is chew on the handles.” That speaks that you can share, I think, is an important to that straightforward sense of wonder and thing not to neglect. the ability to share that we get from the Finally, we tried to sum up that sense sheer scale of space. I’ll finish by referring of wonder, where you feel small and kind back. I heard Annie say that space is there of dizzy just from the scale of the universe for humanity, but I think part of the really compared to yourself. We called it Cosmic popular appeal of space is this sense of com- Vertigo and we created a podcast of the same plete kind of Cosmic Vertigo, as we dubbed name which tries to tap into that sense of it, which is actually that, from the perspec- wonder, and we got possibly my favourite tive of space, humanity is something of an piece of feedback that we’ve ever received afterthought.

93 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 94–96. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010094-03

Space heritage: artefacts and archæology

Alice Gorman College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University Email: [email protected]

ne of my favourite topics in the world movement into space, generally after the Ois archæology and how it intersects Second World War. with space industry and space exploration. When? If we wanted to put a beginning I’m going to start with the basics on this point on the space age, it really begins topic: what is space archæology?1 around 1936 when the first rocket truly People tend to think archæology is the capable of reaching orbit was developed: the study of the past, usually the deep past, far V2 rocket, which was actually a weapon of beyond living memory and they associate it war. Our time period is 1936 up to the pre- with the cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, sent. Where? In terms of geographic range, Egypt, et cetera. And the Australian public if you like, we’re looking at stuff on the sur- has come, finally I think, to understand that face of the Earth, right throughout the Solar we have a very deep archaeological record System, and beyond the Solar System where in this country as well. It’s very different the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are currently to the northern hemisphere, but changing fleeing through interstellar space. Inciden- paradigms about how human societies work tally, there are only 17 V2 rockets left in the in its own way. world; two of those are here in Australia at Sure, there’s a lot of archæology which the War Memorial in Canberra. is actually about old stuff, but the actual So this is what space archæology is and I definition of archaeology is the study of how often also get asked, why does this have to be humans relate to material things. Whether archæology? Why isn’t it just history? Don’t that’s objects or artefacts or the environ- we have an extensive documentary record ment or architecture. So it’s actually a set of everything that went on in the space of theories and methods which examine age? Usually archæology is the techniques how humans operate in the material world you go to when you don’t have any written through those very physical objects. record. Well, it’s true, we have this incred- For this reason, it is not confined to the ible record of documents and letters and past: it can be applied to the present and plans and images, but like all documentary even into the future. When we talk about records, there are huge gaps and sometimes space archæology, we’re looking at a very the only way you can find out about some- particular where, what, why, who, when. thing is to go to that place or to find that And the what is all of those objects and physical object. places that are associated with the human So there is a reason to make this archæol- ogy and no just history, but there are new and different things we can learn from an 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of archæological approach, and given how Dr Gorman’s talk.

94 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Gorman — Space heritage: artefacts and archæology much the contemporary world relies on people. I was working in a context where space, I think it’s important that we use heritage was an accepted part of general any means available to try and understand environmental management. And this what is this world we’re currently living in, is the approach I’ve been taking to space in which technology and all of the social debris in Earth orbit as well. Just to give and political changes which come with that you a very quick flavour of this, among the are moving incredibly fast. To contextualise stuff in orbit classified as debris is Australis- these changes within a deeper context of OSCAR 5, a satellite created by a group of human history and human technology and students at Melbourne University, launched material culture is important and I think in 1970 and still in orbit.2 This is a piece of we can learn things about the way forward Australia’s space heritage: one of only two by looking at the archæology. So that’s the satellites, not counting a bunch of Cube- archæology, but there’s another aspect to Sats that were launched in the last couple this which is heritage, which is basically of years. It’s classed as junk but, I would stuff from the past that people in the pre- argue, we don’t want someone to zap it sent think is important and want to keep out of the sky with a laser or collect it in for future generations. a debris-collecting space tugboat whenever These are the same physical objects. A we have that technology, which isn’t hap- large part of my research has been focused pening anytime soon. We want to keep it on space debris in Earth orbit: in effect in orbit. It’s evidence of Australian engage- a cloud clustering around the Earth in ment with space. It’s evidence of successful lower-earth orbit and a broad ring around space technology driven by the precursors the Earth, which is the geostationary orbit of our current CubeSat revolution. People where most of the telecommunication sat- who made a little satellite on a low budget ellites are. Space junk is a problem. What and had tremendous scientific success for we have at the moment is more than 35,000 it. I think this is a tremendously important objects larger than 10 centimetres, and mil- object. lions and millions and millions of objects Finally, I’m going to leave you with a below that size, down to really tiny micron, thought: we have seen the first launches of submicron dust particles. All orbiting at Space X’s styling satellite constellation. This incredibly high speeds providing a threat is going to number in its thousands over the to functioning spacecraft. It’s a problem next few years, and there are other compa- that needs to be solved and many people nies proposing to launch similar numbers are tackling this problem from a number of satellites as well. It’s going to radically of different angles. change the debris environment. It’s also My angle on this is informed by my pre- going to radically change human percep- vious career as an archæologist working tions of the night sky. Satellites and space in heritage management with Aboriginal debris are going to be more visible to us communities in Australia. For me, environ- than they have ever been in the past, and mental management very much included within a few decades there is going to be no consideration of the social significance of objects and places that were important to 2 See a photo of the satellite, Figure 5 in Dougherty, above.

95 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Gorman — Space heritage: artefacts and archæology one left alive on Earth who has had a view humans will ever have known. And that is of the night sky before there were human the end. objects in it. This will be the only night sky

96 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 97–99. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010097-03

The privatisation of space: does NewSpace create companies or cults?

Ceridwen Dovey Ceridwen Dovey is a science writer and regular contributor to The New Yorker, WIRED and The Monthly. Her email is private.

or a few years now, ever since meet- global commons of space. Any proposal for Fing the pioneering Australian space what we do next in space, at this moment archaeologist, Alice Gorman, I’ve been in time, is equally nutty, speculative, aspi- interested in social and environmental jus- rational. This is a liberating realisation, tice in space activities. Lately, in response because it means no single narrative of a to any call for more ethical accountability human future in space has yet become domi- when it comes to what humans do next in nant, set in stone. It means that we still have space, many mainstream space enthusiasts time to understand that we are responsible or industrialists say the same thing: you’re for what we imagine — whether we dream dreaming. Those among us who are asking for it up in a science-fiction novel, or on the an ethics of space use and exploration that rocket-factory floor, or in the boardroom is as complex and considered as humankind of a start-up incubator. deserves are being written off as naïve, ide- It means that we still have time to alistic, irrational. acknowledge what we have long known, and As a social anthropologist by training, ignore at our peril: that ethics and justice I know enough about human history to do not sit outside of other human activities understand that ethics almost always loses like science and economics. The theoretical out to economics, though I still fervently physicist and feminist Karen Barad was one hope one day that might change. Yet I think of the first to make the point that “ethics … is it’s also important to point out that most of being done right at the lab bench,” and that the grand commercial plans for space are in it’s far too late to start thinking through fact themselves naïve, irrational, emotional, the “ethical, social and legal implications fuelled by cosmological visions and private of various new sciences and technologies fantasies, and underpinned by myths. There after the fact.”1 are a bunch of megalomaniacal Captain Let’s consider some of the generalised Ahabs out there right now, chasing the elu- irrationalities of the most powerful NewS- sive white whale of conquering space (and pace companies. I don’t need to mention we all know how that ended for the troubled them by name. You would know who I’m antihero of Moby-Dick). talking about, and their values trickle down I think the playing field might become within the NewSpace industry so that there’s more level once we can accept that this is an element of their approach and worldview not about NewSpace rational economics in even the smallest space start-ups. versus a warm-and-fuzzy delusion that we could peacefully and equitably share the 1 Barad (2012).

97 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dovey — The privatisation of space: does NewSpace create companies or cults?

Firstly, these companies are usually led tasy rather than actually expecting a sensible by a charismatic, wealthy white man, who return on investment. David Valentine, an believes that he is single-handedly responsi- American anthropologist, has been doing ble for saving humanity by creating a backup fieldwork for years in the American NewS- civilization somewhere else. These leaders pace industry. When you invest in NewS- like to speak breathlessly of the spiritual pace, Valentine writes, you are not expect- value of gazing at Earth from space — the ing the usual return on investment — since so-called “Overview Effect” — saying it will there is no real exit strategy for investors as make us better people; while at the same there would be on any other investment in a time, they actively recruit the global 1% to frontier economy. Instead, part of the return buy into their company’s promises for the on investment they are promised is in the future, a future built on inequality in space currency of intangibles.2 On the angel inves- as on Earth. tor Space Angels website, for example, is the The leaders pour their own fortunes into company’s motto: “Explore-Invest-Ascend,” their companies, diminishing their personal and a promise that space investing offers wealth in the process, like in a traditional access to “adventure,” “meaning,” and “that potlatch ceremony, or cargo cult, where lost sense of wonder.”3 destruction of one’s own material wealth This is not capitalism as usual. These is the first requirement of being allowed to are not rational economic actors. This is join, and is in fact a demonstration of one’s irrational investing. These companies, Val- social prestige. They have even been known entine writes, are not only built around a to make sacrificial offerings, like sending profit motive. They have a cosmological, their own cherry-red Teslas into space. ideological underpinning. The U.S. Space Secrecy and suspicion of outsiders is para- Frontier Foundation, which coined the mount: nothing is transparent; everything is term “NewSpace,”4 admiringly describes done in “stealth mode.” There’s no outside the NewSpace industry as the “Vanguard consultation — even of the space science of Human Civilization.”5 community — before hugely consequential So: these companies are in fact not just actions, like releasing vast constellations exporting neoliberal capitalism to outer of small satellites into low-Earth orbit, or space. That would give them credit, at least, deciding at the very last moment (and in for being rational actors. What they are complete secrecy) to stick some dehydrated doing is, to me, much more chilling. They tardigrades to a time capsule being sent to operate more like fledgling libertarian the Moon. The leaders may even ask their cults, sending missionaries who’ve drunk followers to agree to a suicide pact to prove the Kool-Aid out to places they probably their commitment to the cause, like a one- should not go. way trip to Mars. Is it just me, or does all this sound a lot 2 Valentine (2012) more like the workings of a cult than a com- 3 www.SpaceAngels.com (accessed 10 November pany? 2019) Even more cultish is the way that inves- 4 Valentine (ibid, 1053) tors are hoodwinked into buying into a fan- 5 Valentine (ibid, 1060)

98 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Dovey — The privatisation of space: does NewSpace create companies or cults?

It’s one thing to criticise these companies For further reading, see Dovey (2018 and for wanting to turn a profit in space — with 2019). all the possible destructive and conflict- causing outcomes this may have. Yet, References increasingly, I think that is missing the Barad, Karen (2012) “‘Matter feels, point. We should demand absolute trans- converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers’: Interview with Karen parency and regulated accountability from Barad,” in Eds. Dolphijn, Rick & van all NewSpace companies and their found- der Tuin, Iris, New Materialism: Interviews ers because they are planning to build new and Cartographies, https://quod.lib.umich. worlds from scratch out there, supposedly edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001/1:4.3/--new- on our behalf. I don’t know about you, but materialism-interviews-cartographies?rgn=di I find that super creepy. v2;view=fulltext, accessed 10 November 2019. Dovey, C. (2018) “Elon Musk and the Failure Space is hard, right? We’re told that all of Our Imagination in Space,” newyorker.com the time, but it’s almost always meant in (June 14, 2018) https://www.newyorker.com/ relation to the technicalities of getting there. books/under-review/elon-musk-and-the- Why do we embrace those technical chal- failure-of-our-imagination-in-space lenges but find ourselves so often stumped Dovey, C. (2019) “Mining the Moon,” The Monthly (July 2019) https://www.themonthly. by the other interesting challenges posed com.au/issue/2019/july/1561989600/ by space — the ethical, moral, philosophi- ceridwen-dovey/mining-moon cal, ideological ones? If we want to be our Melville, H, (1851) Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, best selves out there — a dubious myth pro- New York, Harper. moted by many with space ambitions — we Valentine, David (2012) “Exit strategy: Profit, should all feel empowered to question the cosmology, and the future of humans in space,” Anthropological Quarterly 85, Issue 4: cultishness of the NewSpace vision, and if 1045–1067. they really are doing it for us, they shouldn’t feel threatened by our questions and criti- cisms but should welcome them. If space is going to be the canvas on which we paint our greatest masterpieces as a species, we all should have a say of some kind in what our human future there looks like.

99 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 100–103. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010100-04

Transformation of the global space industry in the 21st century and the NSW rôle in space

William E. Barrett Senior Vice President, Asia-Pacific Aerospace Consultants Email: [email protected]

here are three phases of space developments. And the industry paradigm is simi- Tment: exploration, experimentation, lar to the first exploration phase: industry and exploitation.1 is mainly a supplier to the government to Theexploration phase is characterised by a meet the government agendas. But it begins journey into the unknown. It’s usually high to selectively invest or explore commercial risk and inevitably high cost. And because opportunities. of that, it’s usually driven by government The third phase, the exploitation phase, agendas, hence it’s generally funded almost however, sees a rapid change, almost an exclusively by governments. This was the inversion of what has happened in the ear- case for the start of the space race and entry lier phases. This phase is characterised by into space. From a commercial perspective the technology and the science of the new the business paradigm is pretty much that medium being fairly well understood. There industry has a role as an equipment or ser- is usually a demonstrated value of operat- vice provider to meet those government ing in the new medium and often unique agendas. When you go to the next phase, services are possible. The cost might still the experimentation phase, not a lot has be high but substantial commercial returns changed. become a possibility. Risk can be mitigated The experimentation phase builds on the in different ways, managed in slightly dif- successes and applications identified in the ferent ways. First, you know the medium exploration phase. Again, it’s usually high a little bit better. But, second, insurance cost but it’s lower risk because you do know can sometimes become available to insure something about this new environment and commercial missions. In this environment how to operate there. You’ve been there, industry begins to leverage off the govern- you’ve learned from those experiences. This ment infrastructure or selectively look to phase is usually focused on the understand- build its own where it can return a profit. ing of the new environment and develop- The business paradigm here flips dramati- ing a means of operating. Again, it’s usually cally. Industry begins to actively invest, in driven by government agendas. Often these addition to government. Market forces then are military. They can be economic and, in begin to drive investment and commercial some cases, prestige. Again, as a result of activities start to outpace policy and the that, it is usually funded directly by govern- legal and the regulatory issues, which can lead to concerns that we should think about. But for this discussion at the moment I’m 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of Dr Barrett’s talk.

100 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Barrett — Transformation of the global space industry in the 21st century going to focus on what has been happening capitalists, the companies and countries in space to this date. are saying, “We need to get into commer- What happened to the space environ- cial space. There’s money to be made there.” ment, the space regime, when space entered The CAGR through 1998 of the entire space the exploitation phase? What happened to economy was 6.3%. global space revenue from 1973 to 2017? In Commercial activities now comprise 80% my view, the end of the exploration phase of the space economy. The biggest transfor- was pretty much the end of the Apollo mis- mation that has generated that is the move sions, roughly around 1973. The total size of to the consumer market. Many of the many the space economy was US$15 billion at that revenue streams did not really exist 20 years point. $12 billion of that was the government ago. Satellite direct-to-home television com- payment to companies to build stuff for prised the largest chunk of the commercial them to go into space. And there was a nas- revenue then (25%). It was only just starting cent emerging telecommunications industry to come in place in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, that was generating about $3 billion. 1998 but has skyrocketed since. The global navi- marked a real watershed in the space indus- gation satellite system (GNSS) and services try because that’s the year that government derived from that make up the next biggest expenditure on space — what was generated chunk of that, nearly 36% of the industry, by governments paying companies to build including: the equipment used to receive, stuff for them — was matched by what was sat nav implements in the cars, the things earned by the commercial sector in its own that you have in your cell phone that are right. The total pie at that stage was $68.8 doing the tracking. All of that is part of billion, split half and half between commer- the GNSS industry and the services derived cially generated returns from space and the from that. And there are others — satellite government programs that were actually broadband (8%) has now increased and we buying services from companies in space. now have that here in Australia. And satel- What has happened since the turn of the lite radio (1%), which is still largely based in 21st century? Commercial space has skyrock- the United States. eted, as it were. The total pie in 2017 was So when you look at what’s been taking US$383 billion. Government expenditurn place in the last 20 years globally, how has has continued to rise: in fact, government Australia performed? Well, it turns out that expenditure over the entire period, from in space Australia is mirroring what is going ’73 to 2017, had a compound annual growth on elsewhere. Many people don’t realise that rate (CAGR) of around 3.5 to 3.8%, nothing Australia has had an extremely strong herit- to sneeze at. But CAGR for the commercial age in space. But we haven’t been really good sector alone since the turn of the century at publicising it: it’s usually been people in has been 11.6%. Such a rate of return over a the know who understand it. One of the sustained period of 20 years is incredibly sig- things that we in the Space Industry Asso- nificant. In that timeframe, very few other ciation have been trying to do is to raise endeavours have achieved this — the Chi- that profile with people like yourselves and nese economy grew at about 13% CAGR over others in the community, that actually Aus- that same period. This is why the venture tralia does have skin in the game and we

101 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Barrett — Transformation of the global space industry in the 21st century do have capabilities and we can move for- tion, your position navigation and timing, ward. Some of our reports show that there your earth observation. Then it’s the support are over 600 organisations in Australia that services, which include legal, regulatory, as are involved in some way in space activities. well as specific engineering support. It’s The Australian space sector actually gener- space-related R and D. It’s space-related ates annual revenues of around $4 billion learning, education and learning. It’s the per annum from space products and services. other categories of media, museums etc, (The ERG report2 did a more fine-tuned look public outreach. So you can see that, like at that and came up with $3.94 billion.) So the rest of the world, Australia has most we’re in that range and this is what the gov- of that in the space-enabled services side. ernment intends to grow over the next ten We’re very strong in ground stations. And years, up until 2030, to triple that $12 billion we have very strong in R and D and space per annum. education and training. The Australian space industry has around Looking at the ABS statistics of which 10,000 staff who are employed in an activ- industries use space: the Federal Govern- ity which, at some point, requires them to ment, Defence, the science community. But deal with space in some way. Not every- agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining body is full-time in space of those 10,000 are also big users of space. And every state but it’s an important part of what they have and territory has space staff. New South to do. They are spread across all six states Wales is the engine of space growth in this and the two territories in Australia. One country. More staff are here, more revenue of the really interesting findings is this: we here, and that’s largely due to the satellite looked at every industry sector that the Aus- telecommunications industry. tralian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) uses to Australia has a very vibrant innovation categorise Australian industry, to identify and start-up scene in space. There are over which sectors use space services in some 50 start-up space companies in Australia, way in the normal day-to-day running of and the majority of those are in New South their businesses. We expected to find a lot Wales. It makes Australia probably the of that, but we did not expect to see that second-largest nation or location for space every single sector was included. If you look start-ups around the world, outside the at the way that is spread around the indus- United States. Australian venture capital try — we chose to use nine ABS categories is growing and it is starting to invest in to describe the activity — it’s the satellite space. There are Australian space start-up systems, it’s the things that go into space. companies that are actually drawing ven- It’s the launch system, what takes them ture capital from other places: Australian there. It’s the ground networks, which con- companies have secured money from Boeing trol space activities or communicate with Ventures, from Singtel, from the European space activities. It’s the space-enabled ser- Space Agency. There’s a wide range of them, vices which are the downstream products of covering the gamut of new ideas: propulsion, space, including your satellite communica- launch vehicles, launch services, ground networks, space situational awareness (SSA), communication systems, the internet of 2 Clark (2018).

102 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Barrett — Transformation of the global space industry in the 21st century things (IoT), robotics, earth observation, We also are seeing an emerging space small-sat manufacture, and agriculture ecosystem. Many things are happening in information from space. The thing about low-Earth orbit. The economy is moving new space is that the lower barriers to entry there, we are on the cusp of a near-earth make a wide range of new businesses pos- space economy and Australian businesses sible. are working into that right now. Finally, So Australia has world-class space capa- the space industry in Australia globally has bilities. We have strong capabilities in been growing significantly over 20 years. world-renowned ground stations3. We have This growth is attracting private wealth and strong capabilities in scramjet and hyper- venture capital. It is one of the hot areas sonic research. We’re among the world lead- for people to invest in. Australia has leaders in satellite communications, including ing capabilities in that area and a thriving the NBN satellites, and in particular the way start-up sector in its own right. And New they are integrated into a domestic network. South Wales is actually leading the nation We are world leader in laser-based orbital in a lot of that work. Thank you. space debris tracking4. And we are one of the world leaders in R and D in position References navigation and timing5. Clark, M. (2018) Review of Australia’s Space Industry Capability Report from the Expert Reference Group for the Review https://www. 3 We operate deep-space tracking stations for NASA industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/June%20 and ESA, and stations for JAXA (Japan) and China. 2018/document/pdf/review_of_australias_ 4 The Space Environment Research Centre is devel- space_industry_capability_-_report_from_ oping a network of laser ranging orbital debris track- the_expert_reference_group.pdf?acsf_files_ ing stations in Australia. redirect 5 Australia is one of few countries with access to all 6 current GNSS systems: 4 global systems (GPS, USA; Glonass, Russia; Galileo, Europe; Beidou, China) and 2 regional systems (QZSS, Japan; IRNSS, India).

103 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 104–107. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010104-04

Space 2.0 — The next world revolution

Paul Scully-Power NSW Space Industry Ambassador Email: [email protected]

Abstract Will the world make SPACE for Australia, or will Australia make its own SPACE in the world?

Introduction Just ten years ago, only one of these com- e have already embarked on the next panies, Microsoft, ranked in the top five of Wworld revolution. We are about to the NYSE. witness the biggest technology revolution And this total flip is mirrored in the since electricity was introduced. For Space funding for space. For whereas over 80% 1.0 over the past 62 years has all been about of funding for space came for governments “up there,” whether that be satellites, humans, previously, this has now totally flipped so or exploration. We have now entered Space that over 80% of funding for space now 2.0 — Space “down here.” It will totally revo- comes from the private sector. lutionise the way we live, communicate, and And these changes are related as the big- feed ourselves. gest companies in the world now realise that The question therefore is will Australia they can make billions in “space down here.” punch above its weight and prosper by this Developing the theme revolution, or will it fall behind and have the new capabilities thrust upon it? For we are seeing a confluence of new technologies, a time when many new technolo- Setting the scene gies are maturing simultaneously, and it is The world is changing fast. Not only is the this conjunction and integration that will world going digital, but just look at which change the world. companies are dominating the digital age. These technologies are, in no particular order, nanosatellites, very smart and small sensors, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, robotics and drones, IoT, apps, and the Cloud and big data — huge amounts of data! And around the corner there is the awe- inspiring capability of quantum computing.

104 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Scully-Power — Space 2.0 — The next world revolution

The onset of the revolution Within 5 years there will be 100s of thousands of small satellites in low-Earth orbit all involved with things down here. If you think that is far fetched, Elon Musk has already got certification to launch over 11,000 satellites in the next year or so. And he has recently (Oct 2019) submitted application for 30,000 more Starlink satellites. It will change the face of agriculture, As an example, here is a SAR image of the mining, and the way we live. Sydney Harbour Bridge, at night, from a This is indeed a revolution. The United single satellite1. Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs said Just think of the resolution that could in 2019 that approximately 8,500 satellites, be achieved by a phased array of such satel- probes, landers, crewed spacecraft, cargo lites constituting a huge aperture antenna craft and space station flight elements have in space. been launched into Earth orbit or beyond since 1957, when Sputnik launched. If SpaceX General applications launches 30,000 Starlink satellites in addi- This mesh network of nanosatellites will be tion to the over 11,000 it already planned, the smartphone revolution on steroids — it the company will by itself be responsible will be at least 100 times more powerful than for about a fivefold increase in the number the Internet. of spacecraft launched by humanity. Backed by artificial intelligence, deep learning, and data analytics, they will drive The outcome from the revolution the Internet of Things, complete global com- Think back to the onset of the smartphone munications to all corners of the world, and revolution and how that changed the world. will be the command and control network The first Apple smartphone was introduced for robotics down here on Earth: driverless on 29th June 2007. And look what’s happened cars will just be a small manifestation of since. this connectivity. So we can look on the onset of 100s of thousands of small satellites as a mesh Specific applications network of extremely smart smartphones The Australian farmer of the future will, over in low-Earth orbit, communicating with breakfast at the kitchen table, download the each other (probably with laser comms) survey of the farm from space taken the pre- and equipped with smart sensors that can vious day with specific smart sensors, look measure almost anything — day and night. at the analysis that has been done overnight, check the actions to be taken that day based

1 https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/latest- news/2018/sstl-releases-first-images-from-s-band- synthetic-a

105 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Scully-Power — Space 2.0 — The next world revolution on the analysis, and at a tap of their smart up an extensive plan to build an orbiting watch, send those instructions to their farm solar-power-generated satellite network robots, whether they be drones for spraying, that could be operational in eight years3. tractors for ploughing, or ground robots for picking fruit. As an example of different farming benefits: • Broad-acre crops — monitoring plant health & informing precision watering & fertilizers • Livestock — tracking & monitoring livestock (using sensors on each animal) to locate and also identify indicators of animal stress/pregnancy based on their behaviour • Water resource monitoring (as outlined by the Farmers Federation) • Aquaculture — farm site selection, detection of algal blooms, and environmental health And governments will be able to measure and understand water resources, respond Or even a large solar farm on earth. It does to disasters more quickly, and plan smart not need to be that big — a solar farm half infrastructure for the future2. the size of South Australia would provide This same step-function increase in pro- enough power for all the world’s power needs. ductivity, efficiency, and environmental And with abundant cheap power we protection will be seen across most if not could solve our water needs. We have an all industries, including mining, transporta- excess of water — it just falls in the wrong tion, construction, telecommunications, as places. With abundant cheap power it can well as public administration and national be piped or channelled to wherever you security. want it, or you can build and operate desal plants and pump water from the coast to Big ideas wherever it’s needed without having to What about abundant cheap power? Per- make compromises between environmental, haps a space-based solar power station? This agricultural and town water needs. Indeed is not as far into the future as one might energy storage would not even be needed think. A US-Australia joint venture called for the pumping, as it would not have to Solar Space Technologies (SST) has drawn run 24/7.

2 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-10- 3 https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/ 30/farmers-look-to-the-stars-for-crop-monitor australia-leans-into-space-race-for-solar-power-with- ing/11648496 china-20190920-p52ta4.htm

106 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Scully-Power — Space 2.0 — The next world revolution

So where stands Australia? in physical resilience, for they are easily Just about every nation on earth will be reconstituted and upgraded. And the mesh launching nanosatellites. Indeed Uber Space network of nanosatellites could be recon- is already with us, with an entrepreneur pro- figured automatically if it lost a portion of viding a “Trivago-type” web interface where the network. you can shop for a launch. And using laser comms throughout the But the real money will be made with mesh network will not only provide much those companies that can invent smart sen- more security, but it will offer some 50 times sors, and more particularly design specific the bandwidth of modern communications. artificial intelligence apps to capitalise on Jobs for the future such sensors. This is the big opportunity for Australia. So the tradies of tomorrow are software For we have very smart people and, with the developers, coders and app writers, cyber ‘tyranny of distance’ removed, we can use our warriors and artificial intelligence gurus. smarts to be a big player in this new world. We need to foster these skills in universi- We have a unique opportunity over the ties and the TAFE so that we can make our next five years to drag ourselves up from own SPACE in the world, and not allow near the bottom of OECD to near the top other nations to make SPACE for us. It is in terms of commercialisation of these new simply a matter of economic survival for technologies. Australia. Only in this way can we reach the target set for us by the Australian Space Cyber and resilience Agency of tripling the national GDP space But there is an Achilles heel in all this. contribution to $12 billion and creating up By having this uber-connectivity we are to 20,000 jobs, all by 2030. building a system that is extremely vulnerable — vulnerable to a cyber attack that will use the connectivity to propagate itself throughout the network. We need to look at nature and how it is resilient. The answer is to build diversity into the ecosystem, a diversity that uses natural selection to insulate itself against attack. This is possibly the greatest challenge in getting artificial intelligence to work for us positively and to make us resilient against Nanosatellite launch from the International the many manifestations of cyber incursions. Space Station — it can’t get any easier than that. (Credit: NASA) But by having 100s of thousands of nanosatellites in orbit we are in fact building

107 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 108–110. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010108-03

Defence space situational awareness: opportunities for Australian industry

Jason Lind Group Captain, Director ISREW & Space, AFHQ Email: [email protected]

’m going to talk about the part Defence it manoeuvred to miss the other satellite but Ican play in supporting the Australian actually manoeuvred to crash into it. space industry.1 I’ll focus on space situ- Why is SDA important? Without a rea- ational awareness, or, more properly, space sonable level of SDA your satellites become domain awareness (SDA). Hopefully, some more vulnerable. In the military context, of the things I will say about things that that vulnerability moves beyond just space we’re looking to do in Defence, working weather and the opportunity for a collision, with our industry, about space domain it extends to an adversary possibly blind- awareness, might strike a chord, especially ing, jamming, spoofing or, in the extreme, given the concern with debris in space. destroying one of ours or our allies’ satel- First, what is SDA and why do we need lites We’re now pretty well versed in how it? It’s understanding the totality of space, dependent Australian society is on space the space environment, space weather, what for banking, mining, agriculture, entertain- is occurring due to natural phenomena to ment and communications, and Defence has and human activity. It’s understanding that critical dependencies as well for position- satellites are up there, the debris created ing, navigation and timing, timing prob- by man, the space junk, and the myriad of ably being the most important there, com- satellites that are there now and into the munications as well. If we think that Paul’s future. Understanding objects in space and Space 2.0 has legs — and there’s no reason the environment effects of space allows us to think that it doesn’t — there’ll be a dra- to predict what might occur. The worst matic increase in the number of satellites outcome is a conjunction and a collision up in orbit very soon. It’s becoming more between two satellites. These have occurred congested, contested and operationally chal- before and they’re probably going to occur lenging than ever before. again, unfortunately. The most notable The United States is our great ally, and example is Iridium 33 and the Cosmos I’d like to talk about the US Air Force 2251, which, on 10th February in 2009, col- capabilities for a moment, because we are lided at about 42,000 km/h, creating about linked very closely. The USAF has many 2,000 pieces of debris bigger than 10 cm in of things that contribute to SDA, includ- diameter. Amazingly, when we’re talking ing telescopes that look all the way out to about SDA, Iridium was a live satellite and geostationary orbits, radars that look at low-Earth orbits, passive radar capabilities, 1 This is an edited version of the transcript of electronic warfare capabilities, satellites in Dr Lind’s talk. orbit for the express purpose of looking at

108 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lind — Defence space situational awareness: opportunities for Australian industry other satellites, and debris, as others have one. The debris could be generated from discussed. These all contribute to the space an avoidable collision and affect many other surveillance network that the US runs, and objects in space. The Kessler effect or syn- result in the space catalogue, which is posi- drome, where we might have a cascading tional information and prediction, which effect of debris, would be something really the USAF make available for all to see and catastrophic. The movie “Gravity” portrayed all to use. Unfortunately it doesn’t contain the cascading effects that might occur. full information. Some of the information is Indeed, only about 90 of the of the 2,000 not that accurate and some of it is missing, pieces of debris from the Iridium/Cosmos either by design or by omission. collision have decayed out orbit. That’s over Satellite constellations are also quite ten years so it’s pretty grim. Once things are expensive. Even though the costs are coming up there the debris stays there for a very down, you still really don’t want to lose long time. one. The debris could be generated from Satellite operators, and governments an avoidable collision and affect many other seeking to protect their investments, want objects in space. The Kessler effect or syn- assurance and are generally fairly willing drome, where we might have a cascading to pay for it. Companies have started to effect of debris, would be something really seize on these opportunities, such as Exo- catastrophic. The movie “Gravity” portrayed Analytic and AGI with networks and space the cascading effects that might occur. telescopes and radars and complex mission Indeed, only about 90 of the of the 2,000 systems that can determine what is occur- pieces of debris from the Iridium/Cosmos ring and predict conjunctions or collisions collision have decayed out orbit. That’s over and allow us to take evasive action. ten years so it’s pretty grim. Once things are Where is Australia in all this, what capa- up there the debris stays there for a very bilities does Defence have, and what are long time. the opportunities for Australian industry? Satellite operators, and governments Whilst our US allies are our great friends seeking to protect their investments, want and we will share these two sensors, the pri- assurance and are generally fairly willing orities of the US and Australia don’t always to pay for it. Companies have started to align, so there is a need for us to have some seize on these opportunities, such as Exo- sovereign capabilities, so that our sovereign Analytic and AGI with networks and space priorities can be serviced as we see fit. As telescopes and radars and complex mission noted above, there are telescopes, radars, systems that can determine what is occur- lasers, satellites in orbit that can provide ring and predict conjunctions or collisions us with SDA. Australia probably needs a and allow us to take evasive action. suite of these types of capabilities because Where is Australia in all this, what capa- one particular asset can’t do it all. For exam- bilities does Defence have, and what are the ple, telescopes are great to look out into opportunities for Australian industry? space but they work best at night. Radars Satellite constellations are also quite are fairly expensive and struggle to look expensive. Even though the costs are coming past low-Earth orbit. On-orbit capabili- down, you still really don’t want to lose ties are coming down in price but they’re

109 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Lind — Defence space situational awareness: opportunities for Australian industry still expensive and they’re very fragile. You that doesn’t use a specific source. In this certainly can’t update them once you put case, they’ve been using things like FM them in orbit. radio station side lobes and satellite televi- Defence has been taking the view that sion station transmission signals as well, so Australian industry and Australian innova- they can detect debris in low-Earth orbit. tion is world class in this area and that we They look at all the sky at once. Whether it’s should encourage it. So we’ve been holding day or night doesn’t really matter. It’s rela- a SDA demonstration activity for the last tively inexpensive because it doesn’t have a couple of years. Colloquially, it’s known as transmitter and it’s rapidly developing into SpaceFest. Companies and universities go a really first-class capability. there and show their wares. It’s in Glen- Third, FireOPAL — Curtin Univer- dambo in South Australia and what’s been sity and Lockheed Martin Australia have coming out of Space Fest has been pretty developed a system called FireOPAL which amazing. The diversity of thinking and the is a network of really simple cameras, each demonstrations of inexpensive and novel with a solar cell. It takes a picture of the solutions for SDA has been pretty impres- sky every ten seconds, and transmits it via sive. A number of ideas have since been the mobile phone network. They plan to funded by the Defence Innovation Hub and roll out hundreds of these cameras across some of them are coming to the end of that Australia or the world. The cameras just sit funding and are seeking commercialisation there, powered by the solar panel. Someone for operations. I’d like to describe just a few comes out every year or two to service the of these because there are many. This is not camera and it sends that information back an exhaustive list of what our Australian to a central processing. It is extremely effec- companies have been doing in this sphere. tive and it really is an innovation because First, the Western Sydney University neu- it’s taken really simple things inexpensively romorphic sensor. It works a bit like an eye and provides a really high-quality output. in that it detects changes in movement in a Fourth, Electro Optic Systems. They’ve scene and each pixel is independent of each been at this for a while. They’ve got incred- other pixel. It has an extremely fast integra- ibly accurate laser-ranging systems which tion rate, meaning it sees minute changes. can tell you exactly where your particular And because it just looks at changes, it has a satellite might be. very small bandwidth so it’s easy to send that All these innovations are sovereign. They information around — it’s easy to pull that offer opportunities not just for Defence but information and send it to where it needs for commercialisation and export, and it’s to go. It’s proving to be fairly revolutionary one of the few areas that I deal with where and it’s not just for SDA: there are other technology is increasing and cost is decreas- applications for it as well. ing. So it’s an exciting time for Defence and Second, Silentium Defence have been Australian industry and we just hope to con- looking at passive radar, which is a radar tinue our small part in it.

110 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 111–118. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010111-08

Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary

The Royal Society of New South Wales and Four Academies Forum, Government House 7th November 2019

Brett Biddington Founder and Principal, Biddington Research Pty Ltd. Canberra, Australia Email: [email protected]

Abstract The Royal Society of New South Wales, with the Four Academies, held a Forum on 7 November 2019 with the title “Making SPACE for Australia”. In the course of the day, a series of talks covered a spectrum of topics selected to inform the audience of recent developments, opportunities and challenges that Australia is likely to face as it becomes a more active participant in space activities than has been evident for many years. This paper is a summary of the day’s proceedings, that draws on the verbatim record of the Rapporteur’s summing-up on the day, modified as appropriate, for inclusion in The Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales.

Introduction then run the International Astronautical will begin my review of today’s meeting Congress in Adelaide in 2017. The success I with a few comments about myself, to of that congress was such that Christopher provide some context for my remarks. Pyne and others in government at the time: I think it’s fair to say that I am somewhat saw an opportunity to gain some political more pragmatic than others when it comes capital and to avert some unwelcome and to conversations about Australia’s place in potentially damaging criticism. space. I tell things as they are, and not as I think that Minister Pyne was terrified some people would like them to be. that the world’s space agency heads were One of my last jobs in Defence, was to going to turn up in Adelaide and ask the work with some senior officers to estab- government, “So, what are you lot doing?” lish what became the Defence Space Office. and he didn’t have an answer. Effectively, Before the office was set up in 2002, we had the success of IAC2017 created an impetus disorganised groups of men and women in that government determined it could not different services and in the Defence central afford to ignore. part as well. They were brought together, In the decade before IAC2017, many who initially under the ægis of the Royal Austral- advocated for Australia to take a more active ian Air Force (RAAF). role in civil and commercial space activi- I’m also the person, and Dr Clark has ties blamed the government for not being said this in public, who bears some respon- interested and looked to government leader- sibility for the Space Agency. In 2011–12, I ship and investment. However, with respect was asked by the Space Industry Associa- to the IAC, the industry, such as it was, tion of Australia (SIAA) to win the bid and through the SIAA, took responsibility for

111 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary our future. We organised the conference, we scrapped the Space Office altogether. Today, raised the money and we pulled it off. This there is an unholy truce between CSIRO brings me back to a comment made to the and the Agency. CSIRO, somewhat cheek- audience earlier today: it’s not about “them”, ily, has branded itself as Australia’s national it’s about “us.” Let’s stop talking about “It’s space science agency. This is simply confus- their responsibility.” Get rid of “their” and ing and unhelpful. There is one space agency insert “I” and “we” and “us,” instead. When in Australia and it is not CSIRO. we make these substitutions, we are defining our role and accepting responsibility. Defence and space From a government perspective, the money The Australian Space Agency in space in Australia has been and always will Australia absolutely needs a space agency be in the Department of Defence. There is a and I say that definitely and unequivo- lot of money for space capabilities in the for- cally because there are some bits about the ward investment program of the Department. agency that I think are concerning. First, Some of the money that Dr Clark mentioned it’s tiny. 23 staff, I think, as of today or today is coming in through the civil sector tomorrow. Second, Dr Clark, who is an and can be counted that way. However, these inspired choice as the CEO, is part-time. are early investments by companies that are Third, three of the members of the advisory positioning themselves to try to win a forth- group — it’s not even called a board — are coming Defence contract, measured in bil- either dual nationals or US citizens. Do we lions, for remote sensing capability. Their not have nine Australians who are compe- business cases are built around Defence and tent and capable to advise our own govern- not the civil sector per se. ment about space matters? I think this is a My plea is to understand the enduring dreadful look and if I were the Minister for drivers first America is our strong ally and Finance and the Treasurer, who ultimately space activities lie at the heart of the alli- fund the Agency, I’d be questioning the seri- ance relationship. I make no judgement here ousness of our commitment on the basis of about whether this is good or bad, I simply these three points alone. say that, it is. Pine Gap especially has been Australia’s space history. Kerrie Dough- in the past, is today and will be for a long erty talked about the technology devel- time to come the long pole in the opera- opments and advancements in Australia’s tional element of the alliance tent. We also space journey. My PhD focuses on the host, for civil missions, the Tidbinbilla facil- public policy dimensions of how we got to ity near Canberra. where we are. Basically, it’s by good luck, In hosting these facilities, we take advan- happenstance and complete serendipity. tage of our geography. We are equidistant There is no plan, and never has been. In the between Europe and North America in 1980s Sir Russell Madigan and his Minister, longitude terms. In terms of latitude, our Barry Jones (Minister for Science). failed location in the Southern Hemisphere also to make the case for space so the money bestows great advantage, including for our asked for was cut away by the Expenditure astronomers. because they can look out from Review Committee Prime Minister Howard the Southern Hemisphere through the disc

112 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and see things I was worried when she referred to all of that are not visible from observatories in the us here as being scientists. So often when Northern Hemisphere. space is discussed in public it is linked In summary, I come at the problem of automatically and uncritically to science: Australia’s place and future in space from divorced from ordinary people. Common a hard-nosed perspective and approach phrases, such as “This is not rocket science” humanity’s overall approach to space activi- and “she has a head like a planet” reinforce ties in similar vein. this view. As we heard today, space is also Ultimately, sovereign states will make the about ethics, law, morality and politics. key calls. I think they will be driven to strat- And we need more broad engagement. The egies of restraint as they come to understand challenge to all of the Learned Academies, the damage they may do to themselves as not just the science academy, is to take an well as their adversaries if denied the ben- action to think about each academy’s role efits of Earth observation, satellite commu- and contribution with regard to the future nications and even fundamental research. I of Australia in space, and human activity in think that a variant of the policy of mutually space more broadly. assured destruction (MAD), that characterised the nuclear stand-off in the Cold War Keynote Address: Professor Kewley between the USSR and the USA will emerge Professor Anne Green introduced Professor to provide a de facto policy and regulatory Lisa Kewley from the Australian National environment for space. An urgent question University. for Australian policy makers is to determine Professor Kewley gave a wonderful key- what role Australia seeks to play, as a middle note address. She told us how astronomers power, in designing the space security archi- are pushing the boundaries closer and closer tecture of the future. Sovereign states have to the Big Bang and the beginning of time common cause in creating a regulatory and to our universe. And she spoke of the regime, for space that has little to do with 200-strong team that she leads through peaceful uses in the interests of humanity the ARC Centre for Excellence in All- and much to do with realpolitik. Sky Astrophysics in 3D. Astronomy is an Australian research strength and Professor Summary of the day Kewley provided compelling evidence of this fact. The Governor Governor Beazley gave an inspiring speech Session 1. Australia in the space age which made an excellent introduction to the Professor Jane Hall, the President of the day. She talked about the conversation being Academy of Social Sciences, Australia of singular national importance. She men- (ASSA), moderated the panel with the title tioned both the military and non-military Australia in the Space Age. The panel mem- applications and spoke about Australia’s bers were: Ms Kerrie Dougherty (Australia’s unique location, which is our differentiator. foremost space historian), Dr Megan Clark (Head of the Australian Space Agency), Dr Kimberley Clayfield (CSIRO) and Dr Adam Lewis (Geoscience Australia).

113 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary

Ms Dougherty noted that Australia really NASA seemed to fill that need supremely began to cut its teeth on space science in well. In fact, there was an immediate and 1957 in the context of the International severe backlash in Australia, notably from Geophysical Year (IGY). Our initial focus farming communities that had endured was on upper atmospheric research which, years of crippling drought. On his return to in those days, was vital because of our con- Australia, the Prime Minister immediately cerns about the threat of nuclear war and flew to Dolby in Queensland to announce radioactive fallout. additional drought relief funding. This sug- In the 1950s, Australia’s space interests gests that proper consideration in govern- were tightly linked to those of the United ment about the second- and third-order Kingdom. Although Prime Minister Men- effects of the investment in Artemis had zies, looked more to London than to Wash- not occurred. Somewhat cynically, we know ington, the times were changing. Arguably, that $150 million buys a State Dinner at the space activities accelerated the process Trump White House. This is not to say that whereby the USA displaced the UK as the there won’t be some good from Australia’s “Great and powerful friend” to which our involvement in Artemis. Mining companies national security interests were most closely in Western Australia may well be major con- aligned. tributors and beneficiaries because of the I was growing up in the 1950s. I recall knowledge and experience with advanced conversations between Mum and Dad and robotics and automation. Woodside already my grandparents about Mr Menzies going to has a good relationship with NASA in these London and wondering why he seemed not technology areas. to be paying similar or even greater atten- Dr Clayfield from CSIRO spoke about tion to the United States. As a six year old, I CSIRO’s space significant heritage. I was a recall being taken outside on a cold Ballarat little concerned, though, when she said that. night to look up and see Sputnik flash across “NASA placed its trust in Australia.” Why the sky, not quite understanding what it was would NASA not place its trust in Aus- that I was seeing. I did understand that I was tralia? It seemed to me there was an element witnessing a gamechanger in human endeav- of cultural cringe that simply is not required. our. Thanks to Ms Dougherty for grounding Our science and research agencies may be us in what Australia has done in space in small by global standards but the quality the past. of their work is second to none. We have Dr Clark provided an update, through a nothing to apologise about with respect to report card, on the Australian Space Agen- quality and we have significant expertise in cy’s progress. She explained a little about operating ground stations of all types. the $150 million that is being invested by Dr Lewis gave an excellent talk about the Australian Government with NASA in Geoscience Australia (GA), that focussed the Artemis Moon/Mars program. In my in particular on remote sensing. He gave us view, this is an example of policy on the examples of the sorts of things that are being run. The Prime Minister was keen for a good done by GA, in particular with the Data news “announceable” from his visit to Wash- Cube project and how that has application ington. Investing in a space mission with around the world. He is leading an initiative

114 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary to have the Data Cube put into a number of lines in the sand, and in space that Steven African nations, initially those in the Sahel. talked about and that countries dare not At the end of this session there was conver- cross. I suspect that the Chinese learnt a sation around STEM and STEM education. pretty tough lesson in 2007 and we won’t This is one area where all in present have a see a repeat test any time soon. role to play. Not enough Australian students Lieutenant Piggott gave a splendid talk are studying STEM subjects in their higher about the military and geopolitical chal- secondary years and at the tertiary level as lenges in space in his capacity as a student at well. Perhaps space science and engineering UNSW. In real life, Ben is a submariner. He’s can serve as a vector that helps to mitigate moved from worrying about the submerged this situation. At present we are simply not environment to thinking about the heavens. producing enough men and women in this I thought that his last slide was compelling country who are numerate and who can in because it broke down the complexity of his fact keep our economy and industry running. topic in a form that was easy to comprehend. This is a challenge to us all. Dr Coleman spoke about space ethics and how there are actually questions beyond the Session 2. Space law, security and ethics technology that we do need to address in The second session was moderated by Ms order that we have a space environment Donna Lawler. Donna runs a space law going forward from which all of humanity consultancy in Sydney and previously was may gain benefit. The enduring question is legal counsel in the space business of Optus. how to sufficiently synchronise selfish with The members of this panel were Professor common interests to ensure that the space Steven Freeland (Western Sydney Univer- environment remain open and accessible sity), Lieutenant Ben Piggott, RAN (Vis- to all. As mentioned already, perhaps there iting Research Fellow, UNSW), Dr Nikki is place for some form of mutually assured Coleman (UNSW Canberra). destruction policy in space — as was in place Professor Freeland had one key message during the Cold War to prevent nuclear war. that space “is not a lawless frontier.” He made Fear of loss is a big motivator. the point that there is a lot of regulation and a lot of cooperative behaviour between Session 3. Space and people nations in the conduct of space activities. The third session was moderated by Ms Norms of international behaviour in space Annie Handmer, a post graduate student are emerging that countries dare not violate. at the University of Sydney. The members Certainly, nations do breach international of this panel were Dr Jonathan Webb (Sci- law and there is no police force, or night ence Editor at the ABC), Dr Alice Gorman watchman to call them to account. (a space archæologist from Flinders Univer- In 2007, the Chinese did behave badly sity) and Ms Ceridwen Dovey (a writer and when they conducted an anti-satellite test regular contributor to The New Yorker). that shot down one of their own satellites Dr Webb affirmed that space and dino- and created a massive debris field. As a con- saurs are sure vectors to get children excited sequence, the Chinese suffered international about anything. He gave us three wonder- opprobrium that they still feel. There are ful words: mystery, danger and wonder. We

115 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary need to apply them to our STEM disciplines we’ve got to start and put into our commu- and to STEM itself. A question might be nities. It’s a difficult conversation to have how to make mathematics mysterious, not because it’s not the norm and it challenges necessarily dangerous, but certainly won- the economic basis of our society: sufficiency derful? If we could figure out some magic would be valued more highly than growth. around that, we might be in a better place in terms of our future workforce. Session 4. Australia’s space economy: Dr Gorman explained briefly the disci- prospects for the future plines of archæology and heritage, and The fourth and final session for the day how they differ. She then showed how they was moderated by Dr Susan Pond, a senior relate to each other and more broadly to leader in business and academia, notably in environmental management. She concluded the medical research sector. The members her remarks with an extremely pointed and of this panel were Dr Paul Scully-Power, important comment: that we are some of the first native-born Australian to travel the few remaining people on Earth who will to space, Mr Bill Barrett, a Sydney-based actually view the heavens, through relatively space industry consultant, and Group uncluttered night skies. This is something Captain Jason Lind from the RAAF, with that our grandchildren and certainly their responsibilities for space. children will simply not experience. That’s Mr Barrett outlined the size of the global profound and might be considered a call space market and of the growth potential to arms. of the Australian market. He quoted fig- Ms Dovey provided a challenging critique ures that indicate that investment in space of the behaviour of some people who have is moving from governments to commercial attained cult status in the context of space companies. He also talked about lower bar- exploration. She spoke of an alternative, riers to entry to space which helps countries and from her viewpoint, desirable set of such as Australia to become involved. behaviours, that she acknowledged some In 2002, not long before I retired from might judge to be naïve, irrational and ide- the RAAF, I was the security specialist on alistic. The arrogance, and the ignorance of the Australian team that negotiated Aus- Elon Musk, in launching a car into space tralia’s early involvement in the Joint Strike for no purpose beyond advertising, comes Fighter (JSF) project. At present, through to mind in this context. Paul Scully-Power the Centre for Defence Industry Capabil- (see below) painted a different picture of ity (CDIC) in the Department of Industry, developments in space, one that is more Innovation and Science (DIIS), I am helping likely to eventuate. Australian companies to win some of the The challenge for this audience is to work share for the JSF. decide whether we want the space environ- This is incredibly difficult to do for two ment described by Paul to come about, or reasons. First, the United States’ export has Ms Dovey described an alternative to control regime, especially the International which we might aspire? If we want change, Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), make it we are we willing to do to help to bring that very difficult for technology, even for rela- change about? This is a conversation that tively simple and small components, to be

116 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary transferred from the United States to Aus- demonstrate capability and quality, they will tralia or any of the other 13 other nations also need to be competitive on price. This participating in the JSF project. Second, represents an enormous challenge for busi- anything that gets built for aeroplanes must ness owners, process engineers and investors. be built to the most exacting standards of Dr Scully-Power, as noted above, provided quality control and assurance. Few Austral- a counter view to Ms Dovey, saying, “Look, ian companies are capable of meeting these it doesn’t really matter what you’d like to be exacting standards. the case, this is what’s going to happen.” Dr Also, our aerospace industry has been Scully-Power provided a set of numbers, in used to supporting a fleet of 70-odd jets in support of his argument. the case of the RAAF’s fighter force. Sud- Group Captain Lind provided a Defence denly we’re now preparing our companies to perspective. He explained that Australia support 4,000 jets worldwide over a 40-year does not have a lot of Defence space capa- period. This means that our companies bility at present. He emphasised the impor- have to think differently, they have to be tance of the US-Australian relationship and equipped differently and they have to meet gave provided examples of Australian com- standards that they never, dreamt about. panies and universities that are doing some All of that may be hard enough. NASA, innovative and substantial work with regard however, as we become involved in the to space situational awareness. Artemis program, is going to be even more Building on this point, I am a director demanding and more exacting. It is possi- of the “space junk” CRC, more formally ble that for mass-produced satellites, some the Space Environment Research Centre, of these production standards will reduce. that has its headquarters at Mount Stromlo However, for missions that involve putting near Canberra. For those of you who live in people in space, going to the moon and onto Canberra and for those of you who might Mars, there will be nothing but the best and be visiting, God willing and all being well, the most demanding quality control and some time in February next year there will assurance processes put in place for every be a very bright yellow laser that you will single component in these vehicles. be able to see as far away as Goulburn. Our The extent and importance of Australia’s plan is to use this laser to demonstrate that future involvement in space activities is not, we can move the orientation of a number in my view, a lay-down misere. There are of small space objects using the pressure of some enormous challenges. They are good laser light. In the course of SERC’s life, it challenges because we have an opportunity has produced 25 PhDs. And this, of course, to build some Australian companies that is the purpose and the strength of the CRC can compete globally in the most exacting program. The laser into space is the cream of technology and manufacturing areas. A on the cake but it’s the increase in knowl- lesson from the JSF project that is likely to edge and skill that really matters. SERC is apply to the Artemis program as well is that a compelling example of how Australia is financial commitment to the project does building a space workforce that will help not mean that Australian companies will win the nation to define its place in space in the work. Not only will our companies need to latter part of the 21st Century.

117 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Biddington — Making SPACE for Australia: Rapporteur’s summary

Summary Acknowledgements Summarising our meeting in a very few Finally, let me add my thanks to the Royal words: Society of New South Wales for inviting me 1. Our geography is our differentiator. We to be part of this gathering, to the Governor should think about that in everything that for allowing us to use this wonderful venue we do with regard to space and to all of you all for coming. Thank you very much. 2. The environment is rapidly changing, as many of our speakers have pointed out 3. There are capabilities in Australia, developing in the research sector and nascent in industry. Let us understand and play to those strengths 4. There is certainly tension between the civil and the defence realms in space. And perhaps an even bigger tension emerging between public and private investment in space as we’ve heard as well.

118 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 119–130. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010119-12

Obituary Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN (Baron May of Oxford) 8 January 1936–28 April 2020

Len Fisher School of Physics, University of Bristol Email: [email protected]

f I had to choose one word to describe lege. The privileged members of a certain IBob May1, whom I knew as a scientist, Sydney club learned this to their cost when activist and friend from the late 1960s, that the Sydney University chess team, with word would be “integrity.” Bob was a seeker Bob at the head, turned up for a tourna- after truth, and his integrity was absolute. ment scheduled to start at 8pm, only to be He was a lover of games, and saw science as a informed by a waiter that the members were game of trying to understand the world and still eating dinner and would be down when how it worked. His success at this game took they were ready. Bob’s very direct response him to the heights as President of the Royal was to break open the cupboards containing Society of London and the recipient of many the chess sets, set up the boards, and start scientific honours. He also had a powerful the chess clocks at 8pm in the opponents’ sense of social responsibility. This was one absence. of the factors in his move from pure phys- When he received the Order of Merit ics to study the problems of ecology, and in 2002 (a personal gift from the Queen, which eventually led to his accepting a posi- restricted to 24 members) Bob was thrilled, tion as Chief Scientific Adviser to the U.K. but not overawed. He reputedly found him- Government and becoming an outspoken self trying to explain Fermat’s Last Theorem spokesman for conservation and the dangers to her. “Don’t worry, ma’am” he said, seeing of climate change. the expression on her face, “there won’t be Bob was famous for his directness, which a quiz.” most of us who knew him or worked with Bob was an excellent teacher, and would him experienced at some stage in our lives. It list the points that he intended to make at was coupled with a strong sense of fairness, the beginning of a lecture, and tick them and a complete disregard for rank or privi- off as the lecture proceeded. He carried this practice through to his many public 1 Much of the information in this obituary has lectures in later life, which covered topics come from Bob’s colleagues and friends. The quoted ranging from chaos theory and the spread of passages, where not otherwise acknowledged, come primarily from an ABC Radio National interview BSE and AIDS to global warming and the with Robyn Williams in 2011 (https://www.abc.net. wiles of politicians. In his honour I adopt au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/australian- scientific-superstars-no.1---robert-may/3745700)

119 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN the same practice in this obituary, which I once teased him about his choice of sub- puts some emphasis on Australian aspects. jects, and suggested tongue-in-cheek that he It will cover: had switched to physics because it was easier • Early days as a physicist at Sydney Uni- than chemistry. I received the indignant versity (to 1972) reply that he had come top in chemistry as well, but found physics more rewarding. • Transition to Professor of Zoology at After the then-obligatory time -“over Princeton (1973–1988) seas” as a lecturer in applied mathematics • Moving to England as Royal Society Pro- at Harvard University (where he met his fessor (joint between Oxford University wife Judith2, then an undergraduate student and Imperial College London) and Fellow at Brandeis), Bob returned to the physics of Merton College, Oxford (1988–2020). department at Sydney University in 1962. Early days at Sydney University (to 1972) Those were heady days. Professor Harry Messel, brought in to run the School in Bob’s parents separated when he was seven, 1952, had raised it from a state that Bob later and he and his younger brother grew up described as “rather moribund” to a world- in the home of their grandparents. He class status in many areas, particularly in attended Sydney Boys’ High School, where astronomy, cosmic ray research and plasma his experience of the inspiring chemistry physics, with Bob publishing prolifically in teacher Lenny Basser stimulated him to the latter. begin the study of chemical engineering at Messel also established the International Sydney University in 1953 (shades of Nobel Science School to encourage bright high Laureate Paul Dirac, who began his career school students to follow careers in science. in theoretical physics studying electrical Bob was especially pleased when the Federal engineering at Bristol University). He was Government later established (through the also a member of the all-conquering debat- School) a prize for Leadership in Science, ing team, and later claimed that this gave named at Bob’s suggestion after Len Basser. him a useful training for his dealings with Basser taught eight eventual Fellows of the politicians. Royal Society of London in the course of All engineering students took the same his career, including a President (Bob) and first-year courses, which involved hon- a Nobel Prize winner (John Cornforth). He ours chemistry, honours mathematics, but also taught a number of other future sci- only pass-level physics. Bob sat in on the ence professors, including the pharmacolo- honours physics lectures as well, because gist Garry Graham, and Hans Freeman, who some of his friends were doing it. When it did a post-doc with Linus Pauling before came to examination time, where he was returning to set up Australia’s first X-ray only obliged to take the pass physics exam, diffraction laboratory at Sydney University. he decided to try the honours exam as “an Bob summarized the Physics School’s interesting game,” even though he hadn’t activities in an article “Profile of a Phys- studied for it. He came top. Eventually ics Department” for The Australian Physi- he switched to physics and mathematics, gaining his B.Sc. (Hons) and the University medal in 1956 and a PhD in 1959. 2 Judith née Feiner.

120 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN cist (“single issues fifty cents per copy”) in uated within the School of Physics, would June 1970. By this time he was knocking on be “of lesser interest to the readers of this the door of a chair, and had in fact been journal” but added as a footnote “Actually, offered one in theoretical physics at the rival the procedure by which the computing University of New South Wales. It was an department selects its pulchritudinous pro- offer that he probably used as a lever to grammers would be of fairly wide interest. secure one of Sydney University’s first two Unfortunately, the department’s published personal chairs at the age of 34 — an early research on this topic is as scant as the mini- example of his unobtrusive but very effec- skirts themselves.” tive political ability, where he characteristi- He could hardly have got away with that cally used directness as a cover for subtlety. these days. The 1970 article was a classically sardonic In general, though, the article gave a fair May production, and hardly calculated to (if colourful) assessment of the environment endear him to some of his colleagues. Speak- in which Bob found himself in 1970. His ing of the possible (but artefactual) quark wife Judith and daughter Naomi were very tracks observed by the cloud chamber group, central to that environment, which may he wrote “The group is currently famous (or have changed drastically when the parents notorious) for its identification … ”. Com- smelled smoke coming from the kitchen menting on the video lectures to large first- early one morning. Bob told me proudly at year classes, he said “The kindest thing to dinner that night that the smoke had come say about these telly lectures is that they are from four peaches that little Naomi (then improving; certainly an inordinate amount 3) had put on the stove top and turned the of work is being put into them.” elements up to various levels to compare But he gave credit where credit was due, the effects. He was convinced that she pointing out for example that “more than would become a scientist, but she eventu- half the 50-odd pulsars so far catalogued ally became a prominent Californian artist. have been found by the Mills Cross group.” Bob finished his article by describing “the He could also be quite funny about his own other minor projects which keep the theo- theoretical work. “Some of this work makes reticians quiet.” These included “topics in contact with experiments,” he said “and the behavioural sciences (e.g. The Theory of some of it is so abstract as to be quite inde- Voting); and playing bridge at lunch time.” fensible.” He also liked word play. Speaking I met Bob through bridge, and we even of one of his own major theoretical contri- won the Australian Universities champi- butions: “Following on from S.T. Butler’s onship together. Bob was very keen on his seminal work in the field of direct nuclear bridge, although inclined to become rather reactions (or, more colourfully, stripping reac- emotionally involved. Former post-graduate tions [my emphasis]), the group has devel- student Robert Hewitt told me of the time oped a new approach … ”. when Bob threw his cards at a window in Sometimes the gags went a bit far by frustration. Unfortunately, the window was today’s PC standards. He thought that the open, and the cards had to be retrieved from activities of the Computer Department, sit- the car park below.

121 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN

The two Bobs were also involved in bring- company when Stuart was recovering from ing more students to the department. In a heart attack, and Bob had decided that those days, different departments in the bridge would be an appropriate therapy. I Science faculty could attract PhD students ventured the comment that they must be with scholarships by awarding them first really pleased to have Bob in the Depart- class honours as undergraduates. It became ment, and received the rather grumpy reply clear that physics was losing out since it had from Stuart that it would be OK if he could stricter standards. The two Bobs set about ever be persuaded to talk about physics. quantifying the standards depending on a Because Bob was already starting to think score of credits, distinctions and high dis- about the problems that would occupy tinctions earned over the first three years of the rest of his life. One of these was game undergraduate study. That made it difficult theory — working out the best strategies for any department to suddenly promote for interacting with other people on the students to 1st class honours. assumption that they were using their best Bob’s great pride was the time that we strategies. I occasionally pulled his leg that beat the U.S. National team; an event that his outrageous bid against the U.S. team was he never failed to remind me of, no matter his first and only experimental investigation what the subject of our conversation or of this topic. email exchange might be. In fact he was just about to publish a Non-bridge players can skip the next two paper3 on one aspect of game theory. It was paragraphs, although they bear on what his first outside the realm of pure physics, follows. Briefly, we were non-vulnerable and concerned with how to get the fairest against vulnerable opponents, and playing result possible in an election. a weak no trump system. I had passed, the That topic was no accident. Bob was very opponent on Bob’s right had passed, and concerned with fairness, and with applying Bob found himself with a hand containing rigorous mathematical thinking to social just one jack. He knew that his left-hand questions. Harry Messel had been pushing opponent must be loaded. him to think about even broader issues, and So he opened one no trump! A brilliant how to apply physics to biology in general. psychic gamble, knowing that I wouldn’t The linking factor was the burgeoning move- dump him in the soup because I had already ment for Social Responsibility in Science. passed, and that he could hardly lose more It was driven by sociologists like Sol Encel than the Americans would otherwise gain. and Stephen Hill FRSN, along with science The Americans were so flummoxed that they teacher Telford Conlon and physics profes- ended up in game when they had a lay-down sor Peter Mason from Macquarie University. grand slam, which our partners at the other Especially, from the point of view of this table duly found, and which turned out to obituary, it was driven by Sydney University be the difference between the two teams. zoology professor Charles Birch, later to be Bob was not the only bridge enthusiast in a founding member of the Club of Rome. the Department. Professor Stuart Butler was another, and I was rather awestruck to find myself in his and Charles Watson-Munro’s 3 “Some mathematical remarks on the paradox of voting.” Behavioral Science 16, 143–151 (1971)

122 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN

Bob was enthusiastically involved, and Charles Birch, the co-author of the lead- this was how he found his way almost by ing textbook on the subject, was fascinated accident into the field of ecology. He said, by Bob’s discovery, and acted as midwife in in his interview with Robyn Williams, “In what followed. Briefly, Bob was due to take a discovering what I was being conscience- sabbatical break, working on plasma physics stricken and socially responsible about, I at Culham in the U.K. and astrophysics at had read a book by Ken Watt on ecology the Institute for Advanced Study in Prince- and resource management.4” It espoused the ton. Birch wrote to his biological friends view, common at the time and supported by in both places, urging them to deflect Bob observation, that complicated ecosystems towards more ecological pursuits. would be more stable than simpler ones by The plan worked a treat, and population virtue of their very complexity. biologist Robert MacArthur, then suffer- Bob, being Bob, was sceptical, and decided ing from advanced pancreatic cancer, even to check out the question mathematically. urged Bob to take his Princeton chair after He found that the opposite was the case. he had gone. He was especially impressed Large complex systems with random links when Bob saw immediately the mathemat- between their members should, in fact, be ical solution to an important problem in less stable. niche overlap with which MacArthur had The resultant 1972 Nature paper5, which been struggling for some time.6 has had over 2000 citations, took the ecolog- But Bob was happy in Sydney, and ical community by storm, and has provided returned to do his thinking there. He did the foundation for much of its activities ever it in some odd places. One of these was the since. The theorem that Bob proved (which bridge table, where I more than once found had been proved earlier by Eugene Wigner myself landed in a surreal contract because in a physics context) became known as the Bob had manœuvred the bidding so that he May-Wigner theorem, and the disagreement could be dummy and get on with some cal- between ecological theory and observation culations on a small piece of paper on the was called the May paradox. Resolving it corner of the table. has been one of the central goals of ecologi- Another favourite thinking place was the cal science. In principle it is easy to resolve tennis court. Bob was an avid player, and since, as Bob once said “Ecosystems are with his friend Rod Cross could often be the winnowed products of evolution, they found practising on the university courts are not random.” But “what are the special on a Wednesday afternoon. Bob was by now structures that … reconcile exploiting more doing numerical calculations of population niches, having more species and being more growth and decay, and plotting the result- complicated with robustness against distur- ant graphs using a programmable calcula- bance?” The question is an important one in tor (he hated programming the university’s our increasingly disturbed world. bigger computers). The calculator was in the Third Year laboratory, and supposedly 4 Kenneth E.F. Watt Ecology and Resource Manage- ment: a Quantitative Approach. New York: McGraw- Hill (1968). 6 Robert M. May & Robert H. MacArthur “Niche overlap as a function of environmental variability” 5 “Will a large complex system be stable?” Nature Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the 238, 413–414 (1972) USA 69, 1109–1113 (1972)

123 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN for the use of students, but Bob took it over, still looking, Bob continued “I’ve changed rather to the dismay of the students and my mind. I’d like to do it.” Bonner said staff member in charge. It was so slow (espe- “Great” and that was that. cially by today’s standards) that he had to The work poured out of him, in what Bob check it out after every second game to see described as the most productive period of whether the program had finished. That cal- his scientific life. He edited the standard culator should really be in a museum, since textbook Theoretical Ecology: Principles and it played a central role in the development Applications. He expanded greatly on his sem- of chaos theory. inal work on ecological networks and niches. The tennis competitions took place on And he laid the foundations for chaos theory. Saturdays in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, The latter came about as the result of a where Bob could not access his calcula- puzzle. Bob had been working in Sydney tor. He could not bear to be mentally idle, on a key equation, derived by the Belgian though, so set up a chess board at the side of mathematician Pierre Verhulst as long ago the tennis court, with the clock to be tapped as 1838, which describes how population between games. growth must slow down as it approaches The tennis games had an interesting later the limit of the resources available, and even upshot. Rod became an expert in the physics become negative if it overshoots that limit. of tennis racquets, and a frequent consultant The equation is oh so simple, but behaves to the International Tennis Federation. He in an extraordinary way depending on the attended an ITF meeting in London in 2003, rate of growth, first breaking into “boom” and suggested that Bob be invited to give and “bust” regimes at around a population the after-dinner speech, which was a great tripling rate, and eventually breaking into success. The following year the ITF gave Bob wild (chaotic) oscillations at a critical higher free tickets for the Wimbledon finals. He rate (just above 3.596), called the “point of and Judith found themselves sitting next to accumulation,” with the symbol lambda. Michael Parkinson, and Judith, who along Bob couldn’t figure out what was going with Bob seldom if ever watched television, on. Outside his office in Sydney, he had a asked him what he did for a living! notice board. According to James Gleick in his book Chaos, there was at one stage a Transition to Professor of Zoology notice that read “What the Christ happens at Princeton (1973–1988) when lambda gets bigger than the point of It was Judith who stimulated Bob’s move accumulation?” In fact, as Bob once told to Princeton. Some Australian ecologists me, the language was rather more colourful (especially at ANU) had been urging him than that. to join their groups, but Judith argued Eventually, in Princeton, he figured it that Princeton was a chance that might out, and produced one of his most famous not come again. So, according to Bob “I papers “Simple mathematical models with pick[ed] up the phone, rang the chairman very complicated dynamics7,” which has John Bonner, and said `Have you fixed on been cited over 7500 times. In that same year Robert [MacArthur]’s successor or are you still looking?’” When told that they were 7 Nature 261, 459–467.

124 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN he also produced the wonderfully quirky lar,” swung wildly between the theoretical, “Ecology of dragons8,” in which he discussed the practical, and the bureaucratic. Much (among other things) the over-exploitation of it is covered in the many obituaries that of dragons for pharmacological purposes, appeared after his death. Here I can cover which may have led to their extinction. It only a few highlights. was a theme that was to reappear in more One undoubted highlight was his work serious vein many times in his later career. with Roy Anderson at Imperial College. He later used it cleverly to suggest that cli- Together, the two built on Bob’s earlier work mate change may well lead to a resurrection to develop the now-accepted framework for of sleeping dragons from their slumbers9. epidemiological modelling10. “Mathemati- During his time at Princeton, Bob also cal epidemiology” became a field of biology, became the chairman of the university “central to understanding the dynamics and research board. It was a position for which control of infectious disease.”11 It proved to he turned out to be ideally fitted. He also be of great value in understanding and con- chaired a committee to discuss the safety of trolling the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the the university’s recombinant DNA research, BSE outbreak in the UK, and the world- and made sure that the local community was wide SARS and COVID-19 epidemics. included in the discussions. During this time Bob moved frequently Bob would also return to Australia fre- between Oxford and London, although quently during this time, and lectured at Oxford was always his first choice. I once the International Science Schools that had asked him where he stayed in London, and been set up by Harry Messel in 1966, 1968, he replied that he and Judith had a flat in 1972, 1985 and 1987. On these occasions he Chelsea. I must have expressed some envy, would always contact Bob Hewitt ahead of because he went on to say laconically “Well, time and ask him to round up “the usual I have won a few prizes.” suspects” for a game of bridge. He certainly had. They included the But things were moving. In the U.K. Pro- Balzan Prize for biodiversity, the Copley fessor Sir Richard Southwood from Merton medal of the Royal Society, the Japanese College, Oxford, and others were conspiring Blue Planet Prize for “contributing signifi- to bring Bob to the U.K., with the bait of a cantly to the improvement of the global Royal Society Professorship (joint between environment,” and the Crafoord Prize for Oxford and Imperial College London) and ecological research. The latter is awarded a Fellowship of Merton College, not to mention the croquet lawn and real tennis court. 10 R.M. Anderson & R.M. May “The population Move to England (1989–2020) dynamics of microparasites and their invertebrate hosts,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Bob’s career in the U.K., later described London B 291, 451–524 (1981) by his Merton College sponsors as “stel- 11 J.A.P. Heesterbeek & M.G. Roberts “How mathematical epidemiology became a field of biology: a commentary on Anderson and May (1981) ‘The popu- 8 Nature 264, 16–17. lation dynamics of microparasites and their invertebrate hosts’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 9 Andrew J. Hamilton, Robert M. May & Edward K. Society of London B 370 20140307 (2015) http://doi. Waters “Here be dragons,” Nature 520, 42–422 (2015). org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0307

125 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN for disciplines that complement those for meeting in the Cabinet office where he said which the Nobel Prizes are awarded, and is of one proposal “that’s absolute bullshit.” As of similar value. he left, in company with William Walde- Bob also found his way into the power grave, the latter said “I suspect that’s the structures of various organizations where first time anyone’s ever said `bullshit’ in the he thought he might be able to promote Cabinet office. But it shouldn’t be the last.” his social responsibilities, and especially One obituary reported that Bob was his concern with conservation, and with reproved by the cabinet secretary for swear- making science more a central art of public ing on the grounds that it was the first time dialogue. He became a trustee of Kew Gar- that the f-word had been used in the Cabinet dens in 1991, and of the Nuffield Founda- room. Sir Nicolas Bevan, former secretary tion in 1993, driving its student programmes. to the Speaker of the House of Commons, He was appointed to the Joint Nature Con- wrote a letter pointing out that it was not servancy Council in 1994, and also became the first time, and described the time in 1973 Chairman of Trustees of the Natural His- when Edward Heath had described a paper tory Museum in the same year. Later, he under discussion as “f***ing awful.” would join HSBC’s Corporate Sustainability Bob had a great deal of respect for Tony Board, become an adviser to Tesco’s Sustain- Blair, whom he described to me several times able Consumption Institute, and join the as being “very bright.” It was a compliment U.K.’s Climate Change Committee. that he did not extend to very many other He also began to give public lectures. Ian members of the Government, and he gener- Sloane FRSN was present at one of these12, ally made a point of avoiding them and only organized in conjunction with Bob’s visit to speaking to Blair directly. That was as far as Australia for a conference “Chaos in Aus- he went in talking with me about his dealings tralia.” The lecture was at the Powerhouse with politicians. He may have been very direct, Museum, which seats around 300. But many but he also knew how to keep a confidence. more were present, and to accommodate One of Bob’s major goals as Government them all Bob suggested that he give the lec- Chief Scientist was to explain the impor- ture twice. It was a roaring success on both tance of science to policy makers, and to occasions. guide the ways in which it was used. One The biggest surprise of all, though, was of his first actions was to produce a report when he became Chief Scientific Adviser on the efficiency of British science, showing to the U.K. Government under John Major, that it was the most efficient in the world and then Tony Blair. when it came to global impact. It was while he was preparing this report Chief Scientific Adviser to that a British food research group came the U.K. Government (1995–2000) under press attack for wasting public money, The tales of Bob’s time as a scientific adviser after being awarded a spoof Ig Nobel Prize are legion. He was certainly direct in his for studying how breakfast cereals became approach. Bob himself told the story of a soggy when milk was added. In fact, the research was entirely funded by industry, but that didn’t stop the press. Bob was jus- 12 As was your humble editor — REM.

126 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN tifiably annoyed, and wrote a sharp letter Sadly, he was unsuccessful (as all subse- to organizer Marc Abrahams demanding quent holders of the post have been) in per- that no more of these prizes be awarded to suading the majority of politicians about the British groups. importance and significance of science. “It Marc showed me the letter once, and it would be quite helpful,” he said at the end of certainly was a beauty. Unfortunately it had his tenure “if some members of government the opposite effect, including my own Ig found out who I was.”13 Nobel in 1999 for using physics to work out the best way to dunk a biscuit. This was the President of the Royal Society consequence of a project that I had used in (2000–2005) my efforts to make science more accessible Bob was knighted during his tenure as Chief by showing how scientists think about eve- Government Scientist, and it was as Sir ryday problems. One of my most treasured Robert May that he was elected as Presi- possessions is the letter that I received out dent of the Royal Society of London in 2000, of the blue from Bob, whom I had not seen following in the footsteps of such luminar- for some time, congratulating me on the ies as Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks, and T.H. success of my endeavours. Huxley. Bob commented that the major- Things took an interesting turn in the next ity who supported his candidature were year, when our mutual friend and colleague keen that the Society should become more Sir Michael Berry (like Bob, a Royal Society involved in public affairs, but there was a Research Professor), along with real Nobel substantial minority who did not approve. laureate André Geim, were offered an Ig He had had the idea while in his Gov- Nobel Prize for using a magnet to levitate ernment role that the best way to hold an a frog. This was again work with a substan- enquiry into an issue where science was the tive purpose (to show that this theoretically focus was “to get some scientific peer who possible effect could be realized in practice), had not been involved to get a group of and the frog was chosen as a quirky-sounding scientific experts to give an analysis of the subject of about the right weight. Michael lessons to be learned.” The lessons in this felt constrained to write to Bob (who, as then case concerned mad cow disease (BSE), but President of the Royal Society, Michael liked Bob’s idea was not taken up, and the very to refer to as his “boss”) about whether he expensive Phillips Inquiry took place, which and André should accept the award. Eventu- Bob later described as “a legalistic enquiry ally they did, making André the only person that would go on for years until everybody in the world to have an Ig Nobel Prize and was safely retired.” The Phillips Inquiry did a real Nobel Prize. in fact take three years, cost £60M, and came Another of Bob’s actions was to prepare to at least one wrong conclusion (that the guidelines for scientific advice to Govern- disease was due to a rogue prion as a spon- ment, where he advocated “a presumption of taneous mutation). openness in explaining the interpretation of scientific advice” — a presumption that was 13 Sadly, it has taken the COVID-19 pandemic to unfortunately diminished, and eventually induce politicians in the U.K. and Australia to act on lost by subsequent governments. scientific advice, at least on medical advice. We can still hope for action on climate science advice. [Ed.]

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With his new role in the Royal Society, Member of the House of Lords Bob had another chance. The problem this (2001–2017) time was foot-and-mouth disease, and the In 2000 the Blair Government established government agreed to ask the Society to a “House of Lords Appointments Commis- hold an independent enquiry along the lines sion” whose job was to make recommenda- that Bob had suggested earlier. The enquiry tions for the appointment of non-partisan cost around 1% of the Phillips enquiry, and life peers. The very last time that we met produced its report in less than 12 months. in 2017, Bob told me gleefully “You just The report was also effective, causing the EU applied for them.” And he did, wanting to to change its rules on vaccination so as to be known as Lord May of Woollahra. But it minimize the chances of the problem being seems that the Australian protocol people repeated. were not happy with this idea, and so he Bob was not afraid to voice his opin- became The Lord May of Oxford. ions, and in his role as President of the But why did he want to be a Lord at all? Royal Society he publicly accused Presi- The answer may lie in his suggestion years dent George W. Bush of “fiddling while the earlier about the use of scientific peers to 14. world burns” by ignoring climate change. lead enquiries. It was a role that he could He would later point out in a lecture to the still usefully serve, especially after his term 15 Royal Society of Chemistry that the very as President of the Royal Society was over, phrase “climate change” had been invented and he took full advantage. He sat on the by a Bush adviser to displace the more spe- Science and Technology Committee, and cific “global warming.” contributed to 53 debates in his usual inci- His scorn for sloppy thinking was not sive style. confined to politicians. I was present on one He also sat several times on the Economic occasion at the Royal Society when Bob was Affairs Committee, and thereby hangs a tale. in the chair at a meeting where a prominent In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis Bob biologist attempted to give a physics parallel teamed up with Andy Haldane, now the to a biological effect. “That’s wrong,” said chief economist of the Bank of England Bob loudly. and regarded by Time magazine as one of Bob’s “in your face” comments about the 100 most influential people in the world, major issues with a scientific component to examine this crisis between a network (especially climate change) sometimes of financial institutions. The idea was to caused controversy, and provoked opposi- examine the network from the perspective 16 tion from those with vested interests but of Bob’s ecological network theory, and set a trend for the Society that continues to see whether this offered any ideas for to this day. avoiding future crises. It did, and the result was the brilliant “Systemic risk in banking 14 https://web.archive.org/web/20050315035945/ ecosystems”17. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0307-03. htm 15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFUC_5hBwI 16 https://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf- 17 Andrew G. Haldane & Robert M. May “Systemic reports/montford-royal_society.pdf risk in banking ecosystems,” Nature 469, 351–355 (2011).

128 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN

But there was a snag. Bob told me that him to say “There is no risk” or, at worst they tried all five of the major economics “There is negligible risk.” Nor were they journals, and that it was rejected by all of interested in his comparisons with measles, them. That is why the paper was eventually where the risks have been quantified. published in Nature — a premier journal for Bob was at his best in explaining science to scientists, but not read by economists. Per- non-scientists in an exact but understand- haps they should. able way. His abrupt, incisive style was less Bob certainly enjoyed his time in the suited to getting over the message about House of Lords — including the bridge com- what this meant, even though he was well petition, where I would get regular reports aware of “how inherent uncertainties and about his success (especially when he won imprecisions in the area of human social a brilliancy prize). But his success in using behaviour can affect our ability to gather it as a lever to advance the cause of science and interpret statistical information about in political decision-making was perhaps ourselves.” more problematic. But no other style, whether that of Atten- He had more success when it came to the borough, Sagan, Asimov or others, has been many public talks that he was now giving. notably more successful in making science The Darwin lectures of 2011 were a particu- more a part of our culture. Bob was a living lar example, where he spoke18 on the topic example of how this could be achieved, and “What does the future hold?” and argued that perhaps that is his greatest legacy — that, the rise in fundamentalism in both East and and the stimulus that he gave to so many West is a reaction to the cooperative change of us. that we need, but which would mean sac- Bob’s portrait in Australia’s National Por- rifice of individual liberties (or, worse still, trait Gallery shows him with a taxidermy property). specimen of an extinct thylacine on his lap. He also gave talks on science advice and To him, science was a game, but the con- policy making, based on his experience as servation of our planet and its inhabitants Chief Government Scientist, where he had certainly was not. His induction as a Dis- begun his tenure with the belief that his job tinguished Fellow of the RSNSW at Gov- was to speak truth to power. As he said in ernment House was presided over by Marie one talk19, he and other scientists sometimes Bashir, whom his wife Judith remembers as found this difficult because politics has a “saying such nice things.” We could do with different tribal culture. This was especially more like him, even though in many respects so when it came to public expressions about he was totally one of a kind. risk. With the MMR vaccine, for example, he was rapped over the knuckles for using — Len Fisher the scientists’ precise expression “There is no evidence that there is anything to worry about,” when his political masters wished

18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRat04F6ZyM 19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rFUC_5hBwI

129 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Fisher — Obituary: Lord Robert (Bob) May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN

References May, R.M. (1970) “Profile of a physics Anderson, R.M. & May, R.M. (1981) “The department,” The Australian Physicist (June population dynamics of microparasites issue, 87–90. and their invertebrate hosts,” Philosophical May, R.M. (1971) “Some mathematical remarks Transactions of the Royal Society of London B on the paradox of voting,” Behavioral Science 291, 451–524. 16: 143–151. Gleick, J. (1987) Chaos: Making a New Science, May, R.M. (1972) “Will a large complex system Viking. be stable?” Nature. 238 (5364): 413–414. Haldane., A.G. & May, R.M. (2011) “Systemic May, R.M. & MacArthur, R.H. (1972) “Niche risk in banking ecosystems,” Nature 469: overlap as a function of environmental 351–355. variability” Proceedings of the National Hamilton, A.J., May, R.M. & Waters, E.K. Academy of Science of the USA 69, 1109–1113. (2015) “Here be dragons,” Nature 520, 42–422. May, R.M. (ed.) (1976) Theoretical Ecology: Heesterbeek, J.A.P. & Roberts, M.G. (2015) Principles and Applications, O.U.P. “How mathematical epidemiology became a May, R.M. (1976) “Simple mathematical field of biology: a commentary on Anderson models with very complicated dynamics,” and May (1981) ‘The population dynamics of Nature 261 (5560): 459–467. microparasites and their invertebrate hosts’,” May, R.M. (1976) “The ecology of dragons,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Nature 264: 16–17. London B 370 20140307 http://doi.org/10.1098/ Watt, K.E.F. (1968) Ecology and Resource rstb.2014.0307 Management: a Quantitative Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill.

130 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 153, part 1, 2020, pp. 131–133. ISSN 0035-9173/20/010131-03

Royal Society of NSW Awards 2020

James Cook Medal The James Cook Medal is awarded from time to time for outstanding contributions to both science and human welfare in and for the Southern Hemisphere. Nominations for the 2020 award will close on 30 September 2020. A letter of nomination and the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ should be sent to the Awards Committee at awards-nominations@royalsoc. org.au. The medal will be presented at the Society’s Annual Dinner.

The Clarke Medal and Lecture The Clarke Medal is awarded each year for distinguished research in the natural sciences conducted in Australia and its territories. The fields of botany, geology, and zoology are considered in rotation. For 2020, the medal will be awarded in Botany. The recipient may be resident in Australia or elsewhere. Nominations for the 2020 award will close on 30 September 2020. A letter of nomination and the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ should be sent to the Awards Committee at [email protected]. The medal will be presented at the Society’s Annual Dinner. The date and location of the Clarke Memorial Lectureship will be arranged as mutually convenient with the medal’s recipient, usually at the recipient’s institution.

Edgeworth David Medal The Edgeworth David Medal is awarded each year for distinguished research by a young scientist under the age of thirty-five (35) years on 1 January 2020 for work done mainly in Australia or its territories, or contributing to the advancement of Australian science. A letter of nomination and the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ should be sent to the Awards Committee at [email protected] by 30 September 2020. The medal will be presented at the Society’s Annual Dinner.

History and Philosophy of Science Medal The Society’s History and Philosophy of Science Medal is awarded each year to recognise outstanding achievement in the History and Philosophy of Science. A letter of nomination, the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ, and a letter from the nominee agreeing to the nomination should be sent to the Awards Committee at [email protected] by 30 September 2020. The conditions of this award allow for self-nomination. The medal will be presented at the Society’s Annual Dinner. The winner will be asked to submit an unpublished article, drawing on recent work, which will be considered for publication in the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Manuscripts will be peer reviewed.

131 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Awards — 2020

Warren Prize (Lecture & Medal) The Warren Prize, which includes $500, is awarded from time to time to an early- or mid- career researcher in engineering or technology whose work has achieved national or international significance. The research must have originated or been conducted principally in New South Wales. Entries may be submitted by researchers from any public or private organisation. Application must include submission of an original paper to the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales by 30 September 2020. The paper should review the body of research conducted by the applicant and demonstrate its relevance across the spectrum of knowledge — science, art, literature, and philosophy — that the Society promotes. A judging panel appointed by the Royal Society of NSW will determine the winner. The Medal will be presented at the Society's Annual Dinner. The time and location of the lecture will be arranged as mutually convenient with the award’s recipient.

Archibald Ollé Prize The Archibald Ollé Prize of $500 is given from time to time to the member of the Society who has submitted the best paper to the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales in any year.

Liversidge Lecture The Liversidge lectureship is awarded biennially for research in chemistry. The lecture is presented in conjunction with the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. The lecture will be published in the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales.

The Jak Kelly Award The Jak Kelly Award was created in honour of Professor Jak Kelly (1928–2012), who was Head of Physics at University of NSW from 1985 to 1989, was made an Honorary Professor of University of Sydney in 2004, and was President of the Royal Society of NSW in 2005 and 2006. Its purpose is to encourage excellence in postgraduate research in physics. It is supported by the Royal Society of NSW and the Australian Institute of Physics, NSW branch. The winner is selected from a short list of candidates who made presentations at the most recent Australian Institute of Physics, NSW branch, postgraduate awards.

Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarships Three scholarships of $500 plus and a complimentary year of membership of the Society are awarded each year in order to acknowledge outstanding achievements by young researchers in any field of science. Applicants must be enrolled as research students in a university in either NSW or the ACT, and must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents. The winners will be expected submit a paper to the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales (which will be peer reviewed) and to deliver a short presentation of their work at the general meeting of the Society in February 2021 (following their nomination).

132 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Awards — 2020

Nominations for the 2020 awards will close on 30 September 2020. Self-nominations are allowed for this award. The following documents should be sent as a single package to the Awards Committee at [email protected]: • The letter of nomination should clearly state the significance of the student’s project • The student’s curriculum vitæ, containing a list of publications, details of the student’s undergraduate study, and any professional experience • An abstract of 500 words describing the project • A statement of support from the student’s supervisor, confirming details of the student’s candidature. The applications will be considered by a selection committee appointed by the Council of the Society and the decision will be made before the end of November. The scholarships will be awarded on merit.

The Poggendorff Lectureship The Poggendorff Lectureship is awarded periodically for research in plant biology and more broadly agriculture. Nominations are sought every year, but the lectureship may not be awarded in any particular year. Nominations for 2020 will close on 30 September 2020. A letter of nomination and the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ should be sent to the Awards Committee at [email protected]. The medal will be presented at the Society’s Annual Dinner. The time and location of the lecture will be arranged as mutually convenient with the award’s recipient.

The Royal Society of New South Wales Medal The Society's Medal is awarded from time to time to a member of the Society who has made meritorious contributions to the Society’s administration, organisation, and endeavours. Nominations for the award close on 30 September 2020. A letter of nomination and the nominee’s full curriculum vitæ should be sent to [email protected]. The medal will be presented at the Society's Annual Dinner.

The Royal Society of New South Wales Citation The Royal Society of New South Wales Citation was introduced in 2019. It is awarded to a Member or Fellow of the Society who has made significant contributions to the Society, but who has not been recognised in any other way. The Awards Committee considers nominations made by a Member or Fellow. A maximum of three Citations in any one year may be awarded. Nominations for the award close on 30 September 2020. A letter of nomination, outlining the significant contribution that the nominee has made to the Society, should be sent to [email protected].

133 Archibald Liversidge: Imperial Science under the Southern Cross

Roy MacLeod Royal Society of New South Wales, in association with Sydney University Press ISBN 9781-9208-9880-9

When Archibald Liversidge first arrived at the University of Sydney in 1872 as Reader in Geology and Assistant in the Laboratory, he had about ten students and two rooms in the main building. In 1874, he became Professor of Geology and Mineralogy and by 1879 he had persuaded the University Senate to open a Fac- ulty of Science. He became its first Dean in 1882. In 1880, he visited Europe as a trustee of the Australian Museum and his report helped to establish the Industrial, Technological and Sanitary Museum which formed the basis of the present Powerhouse Museum’s collection. Liv- ersidge also played a major role in establishing the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science which held its first congress in 1888. This book is essential reading for those interested in the development of science in colonial Australia, particularly the fields of crystallogra- phy, mineral chemistry, chemical geology and strategic minerals policy.

To order your copy, please complete the Liversidge Book Order Form available at: https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/McLeod_Liversidge_Order_Form.pdf and return it together with your payment to:

The Royal Society of NSW, (Liversidge Book), PO Box 576, Crows Nest NSW 1585, Australia or contact the Society:

Phone: +61 2 9431 8691 Fax: +61 2 9431 8677 Email: [email protected] The Royal Society of New South Wales

Information for authors

Details of submission guidelines can be found in the on-line Style Guide for Authors at: https://royalsoc.org.au/society-publications/information-for-authors Manuscripts are only accepted in digital format and should be e-mailed to: [email protected] The templates available on the Journal website should be used for preparing manuscripts. Full instructions for preparing submissions are also given on the website. If the file-size is too large to email it should be placed on a CD-ROM or other digital media and posted to: The Honorary Secretary (Editorial), The Royal Society of New South Wales, PO Box 576, Crows Nest NSW 1585 Australia Manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editor, in consultation with the Editorial Board, to decide whether the paper will be considered for publication in the Journal. Manuscripts are subjected to peer review by at least one independent reviewer. In the event of initial rejection, manuscripts may be sent to other reviewers. Papers (other than those specially invited by the Editorial Board) will only be considered if the content is either substantially new material that has not been published previously, or is a review of a major research programme. Papers presenting aspects of the historical record of research carried out within Australia are particularly encouraged. In the case of papers presenting new research, the author must certify that the material has not been submitted concurrently elsewhere nor is likely to be published elsewhere in substantially the same form. In the case of papers reviewing a major research programme, the author must certify that the material has not been published substantially in the same form elsewhere and that permission for the Society to publish has been granted by all copyright holders. Letters to the Editor, Discourses, Short Notes and Abstracts of Australian PhD theses may also be submitted for publication. Please contact the Editor if you would like to discuss a possible article for inclusion in the Journal. The Society does not require authors to transfer the copyright of their manuscript to the Society but authors are required to grant the Society an unrestricted licence to reproduce in any form manuscripts accepted for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should be directed to the Editor. Volume 153 Par t 12020 Numbers 477 & 478 CONTENTS

Rober t E. Marks:Editorial: The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. 1 DISTINGUISHED FELLOW ’S ADDRESS Brian Schmidt, introduced byHer Excellency,Margaret Beazley:Evidence and education in a post- 4 tr uth and post-COVID world. SUBMIT TED PAPER Graham A. Bell :Olfactor y acuity test while pre-symptomatic for COVID-19. 14 SPONSORED COMPOSITION David Hush:The magic of solo violin, including the world premier of his Par tita for Solo 24 Violin. INVITED PAPER Stephen J. Pyne:The Pyrocene comes to Australia. 30 THE ROYAL SOCIET Y OF N.S.W. AND FOUR ACADEMIES FORUM:MAKING SPACE FOR AUSTRALIA RoyMacLeod and Susan Pond:The convenors’repor t. 36 The Gov ernor,Margaret Beazley:Opening Address: Making SPACEfor Australia. 39 Lisa Kewley:Keynote Address: Australia’sstrengths in space science. 42 Kerrie Dougher ty:Sixty years of Australia in space. 46 Megan Clark:The Australian Space Agency. 58 Kimberley Clayﬁeld:CSIRO: our roadmap for space. 61 Adam Lewis:Seeing and sensing Australia (and elsewhere) from space. 65 Steven Freeland:The limits of law: challenges to the global governance of space activities. 70 BenPiggott:Militar y and geopolitical challenges in space. 83 Nikki Coleman:Ethical challenges in space: norms and conventions for peaceful spacefaring. 87 Jonathan Webb:The promise and peril of space: viewing space through the media. 90 Alice Gor man:Space heritage: artefacts and archæology. 94 Ceridwen Dov ey:The privatisation of space: does NewSpace create companies or cults? 97 William E. Barrett:Transformation of the global space industryinthe 21st century, and the rôle 100 of NSW in space. Paul Scully-Power:Space 2.0: the next world revolution. 104 Jason Lind:Defence space situational awareness: opportunities for Australian industry. 108 Brett Biddington:Rappor teur’s summar y. 111 OBITUARY Len Fisher:LordRober t McCredie May OM, AC, FRS, FAA, FTSE, DistFRSN (1936−2020). 119 2020 ROYAL SOCIET Y AWARDS 131 INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS Inside Back Cover The Royal Society of New South Wales P. O. Box 576 Crows Nest, NSW 1585, Australia [email protected] (general) [email protected] (editorial) www.royalsoc.au www.facebook.com/royalsoc

Published June 2020