General News
9 July, 2021
Space race in the Cape
KENNEDY MP, Bob Katter, has applauded news that preliminary work on a $120 million space centre development in Weipa, Far North Queensland, is proposed to start next year, labelling the project more than 30 years overdue.
As Minister for Northern Development in the Joh Bjelke Petersen Queensland Government, Bob was part of a push for a commercial space launch facility to run out of Cape York in 1986. His passion for the project remains unchanged throwing his support behind project leader James Palmer.
“Space should belong to us and it could have, but it isn’t. What James is doing is greatness in the making. Joh would never have floated it if it didn’t have the backing of Sir Leo Hielscher– the mastermind behind Queensland’s modern economy” he said.
“Cape York is an absolute perfect launching ground. You can get a satellite up there 25 per cent cheaper if you launch it from Cape York, compared to anywhere else in the world with the exception of Indonesia.
“It should have been done when Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen proposed it, but soon after he proposed it the assassins knifed him in the back and that was that.
“But if we had been able to survive, the Joh Bjelke Petersen crew, we would have had that space base there already.
“Those huge edifices you see down in at Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes relayed to the world the first comment made from out of space “one small step for man, one giant step for mankind”.
“We were part of history here in Australia and yet people say we can’t produce motor cars, and we can’t produce petrol!
“Well hold on a minute, man talked to earth from the moon. It happened right here in Australia at places like Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek and those places were built in Australia by Australians.
“Our space communications systems are a truly great achievement and please God, James Palmer is successful on his mission to win the space race in the Cape.”
