The woman puts Australia in space

Australia is late to the party space. The leader of his new space agency, Megan Clark, she said so herself. This continent, in the perfect place in the southern hemisphere to enter the galaxy, was one of the last developed countries to gain space agency, and could not explain why.

So, the last year, Ms Clark led panel & # 39; peer review to determine the spatial capabilities & # 39; Australia, and found them to be surprised. Existing industry size was much larger than estimates & # 39; before. And never before Mrs. Clark turning a blind eye to stakeholders in & # 39; blow: The vast majority of players have been calls for a space agency to act as Australian single portal to attract investment, support and guidance.

"And what makes your work really easy, because then you can & # 39; go to the government and say" The country is united, take a step here. M & # 39; there is no reduction, m & # 39; no one interested party that does not want this', "Ms Clark said in & # 39; interview. "And not a small group. It is a small voice. This is the nation that wants it."

The Australian Space Agency officially received the initial few months later in & # 39; July – with Mrs. Clark appointed as its first chief executive. She now oversees the plan to triple the value & # 39; the Australian space industry between $ 7 billion and $ 9 billion a year by 2030.

Ms Clark and her team hitting the ground. The agency signed memoranda & # 39; & # 39 agreement; space agencies in France, the UK and Canada, has been commended in & # 39; resolution in the House of Representatives of the United States pledged further cooperation and signed a declaration of intent with & # 39; Airbus.

When the creation of the agency was announced, the public was a bit skeptical in skimpy budget & # 39; $ 30 million over four & # 39; years. That leads to a cartoon & # 39; & # 39 rocket in; form & # 39; boomerang and jokes on the Internet about mock agency, Australian Research & Space Exploration, or MSAs. (In comparison, the NASA budget this year is & # 39; about $ 20 billion).

Ms Clark insecure. To her, the budget size & # 39; the agency is a very important factor for its immediate success. While NASA budget allows dictating the American space industry, the purpose of the ASA is to attract investment and create international partnerships, to lead the industry and combines under one national banner to help growing – role to tell it much more difficult.

"There is an emerging shift in the role of government than a single funder for that & # 39; partner and facilitator," said the minister has just been appointed for industry, science and technology, Karen Andrews f & # 39; statement during the Austrian Conference & # 39; Research & # 39; September. "These partnerships are expected to lead to new companies, and add to the growing momentum in the industry."

Ms Clark feels well equipped to guide the agency through & # 39; growing pains. Her career, which it calls "higgledy-piggledy", stretches from mining geology for capital & # 39; risk for banks to become the first female chief executive & # 39; CSIRO, agency & # 39; Australian scientific research. Each of its positions, she said, was related by resorting discovery in & # 39; economic value – a key objective of most of the space agencies.

Like many of her colleagues, Ms. Clark holds children wonder at the mysteries of & # 39; space, especially in the role of & # 39; Australia to jiddeċifrawhom. Talk with & # 39; on the testimony enthusiasm of the landing & # 39; Curiosity Rover on Mars through the deep space center operated by NASA, near Canberra, Australia, where was the chief executive & # 39; CSIRO. She raved about program & # 39; a virtual reality developer based in Melbourne, Space opaque, which drew the attention of the Defense of the Nation and Boeing.

Its repeated mantra għalha itself is "just doing x & # 39; is before you". She picked up the ladders in her career by dealing with one task at a time, tactical & # 39; combating pressure is attributed to experience was when she was 12 years old. The doctor told her that if she did not receive debilitating nervousness was then a pre-adolescent, it never can & # 39; keep stressful job as an adult. F & # 39; a certain sense, it has dedicated her life to prove the doctor wrong.

It is one that leaves a lot of inconvenience to its pursuit & # 39; detection, feature damha f & # 39; trouble in her early eighties: It caught working in & # 39; mine underground in Western Australia , then something that was against the rules.

"The game was then if the mining inspector came, until you face, and do not appear to work underground or it was not" blatantly "work underground, their eyes," said Clark. "And I just thought that lacked integrity:" This is what I do, and I will not hide from that. "

Her boss at & # 39; then was instructed to flammable or tirrilokolaha, but came to his defense and managed to get her relief, and shortly after the law changed in 1986. The experience was "confronted" but it does tiddispjaċihx to do work.

Ms Clark has grown & # 39; Perth, the most isolated capital city in the world and what it calls "the last capillary global network". Felt that there were only two options & # 39; career in Western Australia which promised ticket to the world: mining and oil. She chose the mines.

She has a strong sense of & # 39; adventure, saying feature is an Australian kwintessentially, and was deleted from the sense that "the world is there, not here". Where she chose to do a Ph.D. in economic geology – Queen & # 39; s University in & # 39; Ontario, Canada – by discovering where you & # 39; pin end if you live on the globe from Perth.

Now, say, the next generation of & # 39; Australians should use that adventurous instinct to travel beyond the planet, not just to the other side of the world. The opportunities for Australians to enter the space market were markedly slim – three Australian citizens astronauts received American citizenship and went to work for NASA – but now she wants to bring back the lost potential.

Her busy schedule makes you forget, sometimes, how much influence its presence as head of the space agency, and as a woman, you & # 39; is. But she received an influx of & # 39; letters from young children and girls alike to jfakkruha with energy space should inspire young people.

"You see it in space, that curiosity had as kids. Some people obtain overcome them, but some people do it and end up in the space sector", she said. "That curiosity is very important, and that sense of a child and can & # 39; to be a little nerdy about it."

Australia can & # 39; tniedix with its own rocket to Mars quickly. But she is confident she will see a man on the red planet in her life, and she hopes Australia will be among them.