Australia’s Senator for New South Wales, David Shoebridge has questioned the cost and potential return on investment of one of its citizens taking part in the European Space Agency’s astronaut training process.
In February 2021, ESA announced its first call for new astronauts in more than a decade. A record-breaking 22,500 applicants put their names forward for the selection process. Among the hopefuls was Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, who was able to apply thanks to her dual UK-Australian citizenship.
In November 2022, ESA announced its selection of five career astronauts, 11 reserve astronauts, and one parastronaut. Bennell-Pegg was not one of the lucky few.
In March 2023, the Australian Space Agency (ASA) announced that it had selected to send Bennell-Pegg to Germany to participate in the ESA astronaut training process representing Australia. At the time of the announcement, the country did not have a human spaceflight programme and had no announced plans to purchase a seat aboard a commercial crewed mission to space.
On 28 March 2024, Australian senator David Shoebridge posed a number of questions to the country’s Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic regarding the particulars of Bennell-Pegg’s selection. Shoemaker questioned, “What specific expertise, scientific or domestic-industrial benefit was identified to be brought back to Australia, which was not already available domestically.” In addition to questioning how much had been spent thus far on the training process, he also questioned Bennell-Pegg’s selection and whether or not she would have been selected “if not already an employee of the ASA.”
“As the position of astronaut is an extremely high-profile, highly competitive, public sector employee position, does the Agency have any plans to run a selection process for “Australia’s official astronaut” open to all citizens, not only those who are dual citizens of other nations with human-spaceflight programs of their own.”
Shoemaker concluded his list of ten questions by asking whether ASA was aware that Bennell-Pegg was the co-creator of a failed television programme to “select and train two astronauts.”
The Australian Space Agency’s budget for the 2023-24 period was 34.2 million AUD ($22.1 million). As a result, a 10-day trip to space for an Australian citizen aboard a commercial flight with Axiom costing around $55 million would be the equivalent of more than two years of the agency’s entire budget.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that David Shoebridge was the Minister for Industry and Science. In reality, Shoebridge posed the questions to the Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic.
