Phil
Pennington, Reporter
The
government is spending almost 20 times less on space per
head than the United States, and half that of the United
Kingdom.
The first sector survey in six years shows
five out of the seven rival space countries New Zealand
compares itself to are ahead on government
funding.
The local spend was about US$11 a head in
2023-24, versus US$20 in Britain and US$200 in
America.
Britain has six spaceports under development,
while New Zealand has a single one at Mahia in use for
several years, while the government has ruled out
subsidising building another spaceport near
Christchurch.
France, Germany and Korea’s governments
are all also spending more per head on space.
However,
they, Canada and Italy each have only a single spaceport
still under development.
Local space and advanced
aviation revenue is up 50 percent in five years to $2.5
billion a year; the target is to double it by
2030.
The new report by consultancy Deloitte had a
wrong figure in it: it gave the New Zealand government spend
as just over a dollar a year.
When RNZ asked about
this, officials told us the figure was wrong and should be
US$11.06, not US$1.11 – “We’ve identified there is a mistake
in the report.”
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
General manager of Science and Space,
at MBIE, Robyn Henderson, said late on Thursday: “The
substantive content of this report is a survey of the New
Zealand space and advanced aviation sectors, and we are
confident in its findings.”
The report said local
start-ups in particular want more government help, such as
more grants or tax incentives.
Public-Private
Partnerships, or PPPs, could attract more international
cooperation.
PPPs were being used by Japan to develop
lunar rovers, autonomous navigation systems, and simulation
and testing platforms, it added.
The Space Minister
Judith Collins said the government was helping through
“light-touch” regulation and encouraging careers in
space.
On the downside, “there appears to be limited
international awareness of the New Zealand … sector
outside of our growing launch capabilities”, the report
said.
Australia and India recently did a deal on
collaborative space projects, and this sort of thing here
could help, it suggested.
Another way was to promote
clusters, like the nascent Christchurch space one (Tāwhaki
national aerospace centre is just south of the city. It has
the best
site for rocket launches in the country, though a
spaceport is not in prospect).
“California, Seattle,
Toulouse, Hamburg, Chengdu and Bangalore are all examples of
Aerospace clusters that provide an ecosystem which is
conducive for collaboration and rapid dispersal of
technology and market information.”
The sector was
“commercially led and homegrown”, with 78 percent of survey
respondents saying more than half their workforce was local,
said the report.
On Tuesday, Collins said as space and
cyber threats grew, there would be more connection between
the space agency and the defence force.
However, the
Deloitte report does not contain the word “military” and
mentions defence as a passing reference just once.
The
Deloitte 2019 report on the sector talked about defence a
lot, particularly about how it was central to many other
countries’ space industries but, unusually, not to New
Zealand’s.
Subsequent official documents have stated
the NZDF wants to acquire many more space assets of its
own.
In addition, the government has stated the space
sector could benefit from the Pentagon looking to widen its
use of commercial space solutions, an approach its new
strategies are now accelerating, US reporting
shows.
It is unclear if the US government investment
in space includes its military operations. The report gives
its total budget as US$69.5 billion a year, however, the
Pentagon’s US Space Force alone has a budget of over US$50
billion.
A key advantage New Zealand has is a
military-linked one – a technology
safeguards agreement (TSA) that provides security around
import and use here of US rocket launch technology and
satellites. Agreed in 2016 though ratified at the UN only
last year, it helped pave the way for launches at Rocket
Lab’s Mahia
spaceport.
New Zealand’s public broadcaster, providing comprehensive NZ news and current affairs, specialist audio features and documentaries.
Radio New Zealand is a Crown entity established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. Radio New Zealand News are vital elements in our programming, providing impartial news and information to New Zealanders every day. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) provides listeners with exciting and independent radio programmes in accordance with the Radio New Zealand Charter.
