Page 3915 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
here - future families of Australia will come to these sites with awe. When Canberra is a city of a million people, when we are linked by rapid transportation to Sydney and Melbourne, then, in the 21st and 22nd centuries, Australian families will gaze with respect at these sites. We need therefore to have them documented fully and adequately.
Finally, Mr Ron Owens was secretary of this investigation throughout the process of field work, the process of gathering evidence and the process leading to this final report. Indeed, this report was his last service to the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and the Environment before handing over to Mr Bill Symington. My very great thanks to Mr Owens on behalf of all of us for his work, but especially may I thank him for his good historical sense and his wise advice when asked about ways to proceed. We are also grateful for his up to date understanding of some contentious matters which may or may not be adequately resolved - and Mr Wood may be rather shocked by what I am about to say - by recourse to carefully reading Fowler's Modern English Usage, or alternatively, to reading Fowler's Modern English Usage carefully.
When the historical markers are written I hope that Mr Owens, with his many skills, will be on hand to advise the drafters of those statements. Mr Owens has helped us to remember the great events associated with Orroral Valley and Honeysuckle Creek.
MR STEFANIAK (4.26): Firstly, I join with my colleague the chairman, Dr Kinloch, in relation to his comments about Mr Ron Owens, our committee secretary, Indeed, I would also commend the other staff of the Assembly who assisted the committee on this report. These two sites are quite historic, as Dr Kinloch said. Their relevance to space tracking and the NASA space exploration program was superseded by other sites in Australia and around the rest of the world. By 1985 both sites were closed. I think it is appropriate to note some of the great events that these sites relate to, especially the Honeysuckle Creek tracking site which broadcast that historic message when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in July 1969. Honeysuckle Creek was the ground receiving station. His famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", were broadcast to the world via the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station in the ACT.
Orroral Valley tracking station also has played a great and significant part in space exploration. The first satellite tracked by that station was Pegsat, a weather information satellite. It was also involved in the Apollo III mission. Both are historic sites and the committee realises that they should not be lost to future generations. Appropriately, its recommendation, in chapter 3, was that, in consultation with the managers of the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, a space tracking station that is still
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .