Press Conference - RMIT Advanced Manufacturing Precinct
PROFESSOR ALEC CAMERON, VICE CHANCELLOR, RMIT UNIVERSITY: On behalf of RMIT, it's a great pleasure to welcome all of our guests here this morning. I would like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we meet and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and I would like to acknowledge our visitors today.
Firstly, Senator the Honourable Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Innovation, and Minister for Science. The Honourable Andrew Giles, Minister for Skills and Training. Enrico Palermo, Head of the Australian Space Agency, partners in the Roo-ver, RMIT colleagues and members of the media. Welcome to RMIT’s Advanced Manufacturing Precinct. This forms part of our City North Precinct, for which we have strong ambition for this to be a Social Innovation Precinct which brings together university, plus government, plus industry to create positive and beneficial outcomes for the community in which we are located.
As the name implies, we're proud to say it's home to the most advanced manufacturing technologies available in Australia. And it’s just one of the locations in which we intend to educate and support the next generation of leaders in engineering and science. But it doesn’t happen in isolation. RMIT has been doing this for the last 138 years, in partnership with industry and government. And that in some sense is always our principal approach. So, without further ado, now, I would like to hand over to Enrico.
ENRICO PALERMO, HEAD, AUSTRALIAN SPACE AGENCY: Good morning everyone, Enrico Palermo, Australian Space Agency, honoured to be here alongside Minister Ayres and Minister Giles to announce that we now have our mission to the Moon. We have an enduring partnership with NASA, that goes back half a century and we've been developing Roo-ver with our partners for a couple of years now, but now we have a decision, we know the two sites that may be used to put Roo-ver on the Moon.
There's been five nations today that have successfully operated rovers on the surface of the Moon, and we look to add to that. This is a generous investment of the Australian Government, $42 million, to design, and build and test Roo-ver. It's a national mission bringing together a consortia, industry and academia and scientists to do what's one of our most ambitious programs.
The other thing the Minister is announcing today is we’re carrying a sensor for NASA. So NASA is entrusting us with this really important science on lunar soil, [indistinct] soil, sustaining presence on the Moon. So we’re proud to deliver this project, and I want to hand to Minister Ayres to put it in the context of the Government’s agenda.
TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION, MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Thank you Enrico. Thank you Vice Chancellor for the welcome. Very pleased to be here with Sarah Witty, the new Member for Melbourne, Andrew Giles, the Minister for Skills and Training, to make this announcement that this craft here, this space rover will be the first Australian craft on the Moon. It's an important national project named Roo-ver, which doesn't run off the tongue as easily as you might think, but it's going to mobilise a generation of Australians, Australian scientists, Australian tradespeople, the 10,000 Australians who are currently engaged in the space sector and generations of school kids and their interest in science, technology, engineering, mathematics.
This is an enormous opportunity for Australia. A craft made in Australia by Australians by twenty Australian firms. All engaged in this giant national endeavour. An announcement today that it’s hooked in for space travel at the end of the decade, a joint Australian-NASA collaboration. As Enrico says, 50 years of Australian collaboration with our partners in the United States in NASA is delivering this fantastic Australian success, it will do real science work. It will be evaluating materials on the moon to guide future science and future exploration work on the Moon. What could be more exciting than that? Roo-ver is an Australian space rover. We should hop right into it, that's my view. Over to – Andrew didn't think I'd do that – I'll hand over to Andrew Giles and then if there's any questions I'm happy to take them.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Well, thanks very much, Tim, except perhaps for that last reference, it's really exciting to be here with you Minister Ayres and the fantastic new Member for Melbourne Sarah Witty. With Alec and his wonderful team here at RMIT, particularly here at the advanced manufacturing space and of course Enrico, to recognise the work that you're doing and this really important announcement.
It's also important I think to recognise we’re standing here in Skills Week and this, Australia's 30th National Skills Week, the theme is explore all the options. And what today shows, what this announcement shows us, is that when we think about all the options, these are things that aren’t confined by Melbourne, or Victoria, Australia or indeed even the planet.
We are thinking about how the capacities of Australians can take us to the Moon and beyond. Hopping, perhaps Tim, I’m not sure about that, but it shows what extraordinary skills are present in Australia. From my point of view, what I want to do is make sure that we do a better job to ensure we are bringing out the talent of every Australian. As I stand here I think we’ve got a great template for exactly how that works. These are national objectives, understanding our world, our place and building international partnerships that are really the subject of this. We’ve got the building blocks here, a fantastic university, that's also a dual sector provider. Working really effectively in vocational educational and training, and really strong partnerships.
This is how we do two really important things. We make sure we do everything possible to bring out the talent of every Australian and we link it to achieving our national objectives. So this is a wonderful occasion to be part of, and back to Tim unless there is any skills questions.
AYRES: Is there any questions for me before I get to sort of drive this little thing around the place, I had a crack at it this morning, it’s slower moving than Mario Kart but it’s a lot of fun.
JOURNALIST: Are you going to be behind the wheel when it comes to getting it on the Moon Tim, or are you going to hand the controls over?
AYRES: Sorry I just –
JOURNALIST: Are you going to be behind the wheel when it's up there or are you going to hand the controls over?
AYRES: This is a highly technical operation, that has some risk attached to it, with a valuable piece of Australian infrastructure on the Moon. I think I'll be lucky to watch it on television. I don't think I'd be entrusted with any technical sort of piloting responsibility for this project.
JOURNALIST: I think the next few decades are going to be defined by that space race that's going on for the economic share, is the Australian Government doing enough to take advantage of the opportunities there?
AYRES: So right now, 10,000 Australians are engaged in space research and space industry. It has applications, of course what we achieve in space research and space applied science, then flows over, in all sorts of other sectors. So the 3D printer behind me that will print the titanium alloy wheels for this that are currently, in the model that you see plastic, they will be titanium alloy wheels that are 3D printed in that machine. That is the same machine, the same technology, that will be printing, not sure this is the right term, but made to order bone fragments in our medical technology sector. So there's all sorts of spillover benefits in space.
We're investing $42 million, sitting behind the Australian Space Agency in the efforts that Enrico is leading.
There is always a demand for more. There is always a competition in science for national priority, we are investing big time in science, and we have a big national agenda for Australian manufacturing that sits behind that and is fundamentally related to that. The biggest pro manufacturing package in Australian political history, sitting behind our science ambitions, fundamentally technology-led.
JOURNALIST: We've got the PM at the Bush Summit today. You've made some comments about sort of the big obstacles facing renewable projects. Can you clarify what you mean by those big obstacles in the way of renewables?
AYRES: So these projects, our wind projects and solar and transmission are fundamental for us, achieving a low-cost, reliable electricity system for the future. Industry relies upon that, as we electrify our industry, as electricity plays a larger and larger part in heavy industry in particular, the future of Australian blue collar jobs, the future of our ambitions in data centres, these big nation building projects, rely upon speedy access and speedy progress in this area.
Now, of course, we've got to work with regional communities to make sure that these projects are proceeding properly, like any other project, you're building a supermarket, a coal mine, a factory, you've got to satisfy the environmental requirements. But there's been a bit odd, politically motivated, partisan behaviour trying to divide rural and regional communities.
When I'm close to country towns and regional communities where these projects are going in, of course, they've divided opinion. But what I see, Armidale for example, in the heart of Barnaby Joyce's electorate, is Australian scientists and Australian researchers, local government, all in behind the enormous opportunities that the solar rollout and the wind rollout hold for that community, real jobs, science jobs, blue-collar jobs, community development, my message is we've got to get on with this. It is a nation building project, it's in the national interest, and the Government's going to keep our shoulder behind the wheel.
JOURNALIST: Enrico a couple of questions if we can? Why would NASA come to Australia and want this, be a part of it? Can you explain what makes it special?
PALERMO: So NASA has partnered with the Australian Government, the Australian Space Agency, on Roo-ver and the broader Mars initiative because they realise we have pretty unique experience that stems from our resources sector.
So in places like WA we operate mine sites autonomously, and the hazards by the humans and that's really, you look at the number of lunar missions coming up over the next decade. Australia could contribute that experience so whether you're operating the mine site 3,000 kilometres away or 180,000 kilometres away, we have expertise there and Roo-ver fundamentally, we were brought on for that reason.
JOURNALIST: And what is Roo-ver capable of doing?
PALERMO: Roo-ver on the surface of the Moon can autonomously navigate the surface of the Moon. As I said, it's going to carry a NASA sensor that's going to study the composition of the lunar soil, in particular the dust, so when objects land on the Moon it picks up a lot of dust, we’re going to be characterising that dust plume for [indistinct] and human habitation. We’re going to be taking a lot of photographs, an up to 14 day mission, we will be doing a lot of science.
JOURNALIST: And what's the value of that, how do we use it?
PALERMO: Every time we go to space, we end up developing technologies that are better for life on Earth. So the reason we go out there and we explore ultimately life on Earth, there hasn't been that many objects that have landed on the Moon and characterised the lunar surface, the two sites that NASA are looking at are close to identified sources of ice water. And so understanding where that ice is, is important to have a sustainable presence on the Moon. It's using it as a launching pad.
AYRES: Thanks everybody.
ENDS