Today is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and humans walking on the moon. It's one of those things that I know my parents and many others have told me where they were when it was broadcast (at school, for example) and how they still remember it.
This evening, I went to Scienceworks' 50th anniversary celebration, which was great, particularly the panel discussion and the Planetarium show. One year on from the foundation of the Australian Space Agency, a lot of the talk was about the future: How do we get young people interested in space, how do we make sure they don't go off to the US or Europe to get their space experience, can we put a human on the moon? For a while they dared to dream and did something we're still talking about. What can we do if we dare to dream? So, what do you call an astronaut from Australia? Several panellists suggested the answer should be "aussienaut".
The American Consulate sponsored it, and the consul was present and spun the story as the triumph of the youth of our two countries (apparently average age in mission control was 26...). And that if we get the youth of our two countries together again, there's no reason we can't journey to the stars (ed: maybe Mars is a slightly more realistic target for now...)
More relevant to this forum, one of the panellists was from RMIT and wanted us to know they're offering a new space science degree from next year. Another panellist was from Swinburne and said they were starting to offer a subject in space law.