Australians urged not to walk but to work on the moon
Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg is urging local researchers to look to space for answers to some of earth’s biggest challenges.
Australia’s first qualified astronaut doesn’t just want to walk on the moon, she wants to get science experiments running on it.
And local researchers and start-ups would be uniquely qualified to play a role in a new era of space exploration, she says, for their expertise in robotics, software and innovation developed in fields such as mining and farming.
Katherine Bennell-Pegg made the comments at the International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space in Brisbane on Tuesday, the first time the event has been held in Australia.
Other Australian-born people to train as astronauts have included Paul Scully-Power and Andy Thomas, who adopted US citizenship to train with NASA.
The conference, which attracted space agencies and researchers from around the world, also showed off Australian rover prototypes vying to be part of future moon missions.
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Bennell-Pegg, 39, serves as the Australian Space Agency’s space technology director and says local start-ups have developed deep expertise in robotics, automation and remotely controlled applications that would be as useful in space as they are in Australia’s wide open spaces.
“Learning to manage our remote and vast lands, our resources sector, our agriculture sector – they all use field robotics,” the InDaily SA 40 Under 40 alumnus said.
“The tech they use for different kinds of robots, automation and increasingly AI can really neatly be applied to the moon.”
But the astronaut, who graduated from the European Space Agency in April, said exploring space was about much more than it seemed.
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Discoveries and innovations unlocked through space missions had created ways to track bushfires, manage water resources, monitor climate change and develop medicines, she said.
By investing in rocket launches and NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon, humans could improve lives on this planet, Bennell-Pegg said.
“Ultimately, we explore space to benefit the earth,” she said.
“When we go back to the moon, we’re going not to walk but to work, this time in the south polar region where we can stay longer to do science up there we cannot do on earth, to learn information about earth we cannot learn any other way.”
Space-based discoveries ran a wide gamut from Velcro to phone cameras, CSIRO astrometallurgy research scientist Matthew Shaw said, and some useful creations were developed simply to adapt to difficult environments.
“The conditions in space force innovation – you’re not even thinking outside the box, you’re thinking outside the globe,” he said.
“If you can create a heat blanket that keeps you warm in space, that’s going to work really well in the Arctic.”
Developing a way to mine iron on the moon to build a base could also unlock significant benefits for earth, Dr Shaw said, and was currently under investigation.
“We need a process that is energy-efficient because there’s no embedded energy networks, we need a process that recycles everything … we need full automation,” he said.
“Every time we’re creating things for space, we’re pushing the edge of science and engineering.”
Based in Adelaide, the Australian Space Agency was established in 2018 with a goal to foster a $12 billion industry and create 20,000 jobs by 2030.
