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The Aussie space plan
Entrepreneur Richard Branson wants to bring his "Virgin
Galactic" spaceships to Australia and says he
has already had approaches from several state governments.
A US base is expected to be training 3000 astronauts
for the $US190,000 sub-orbital flights in as little
as three years.
Branson’s Virgin Group has entered into a deal
with US space aviation pioneer Burt Rutan and Paul
Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, to develop affordable
space tourism.
Mr Rutan's SpaceShipOne won the $US10million Ansari
X-Prize last October. The prize was created in 1996
to encourage civilian space flight.
Branson said in Sydney that the plan was to build
sufficient spaceships to allow the establishment of
separate bases around the world.
The British entrepreneur said the space flights would
be a great spectacle and attract wealthy individuals.
In time, he hoped to bring down the price of space
travel to make it more affordable.
“I think Australia would be a place where it
would be wonderful to set up a space station and offer
space travel from.”
Waste may prove profitable
for SA farmers
A new South Australian research project aims to teach
farmers how to make money from their waste. The $4.5
million project is being launched by the SA Government
and the Environmental Biotechnology Cooperative Research
Centre.
Research centre director Dr David Garman says farmers
will be able to make use of the latest biotechnology
to boost their profits.
He says farm waste can be made into almost anything,
from fish food and plastic bags to bio-fuel.
"The left-over straw, left-over waste from his
livestock and he would also be using bits of green
crops which hadn't been used elsewhere," he said.
"So virtually the products which have low value
and [are] regarded by some people as waste, start to
become recycled."
Government proposes to classify
universities
Proproasl by the federal Government to classify Australia's
universities into three teaching and research categories
would marginalise some institutions and lead to complacency
in others, says Deakin University vice-chancellor Sally
Walker.
Professor Walker, who says Deakin is one of the nation's
fastest growing research universities, told the HES
she was "gravely concerned" that the research
quality framework would stifle the sector and undermine
competition.
She said government proposals to classify universities
as research intensive, teaching and research or teaching
only would also downgrade the reputation of teaching.
Professor Walker said while she did not believe Deakin
would be pushed into a teaching-only category, she
thought it was likely that the university would be
placed in the teaching and research category.
"What would happen is that any academic would
want to be in a research intensive university," she
said. "So we, and [other] universities that were
classified as research and teaching, would have to
try harder to attract and retain staff.
She said rather than rigid classifications, the Government
should offer performance-based funding.
"Performance-based funding that is competitively
available would, because of its significance, create
differentiation and be attached to the distinctive
missions of the university. That would create real
diversity as opposed to this artificially imposed diversity."
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