Until the international markets crashed, with several leading financial institutions leading the way, Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister lacked any defining purpose to his leadership, and so treated us with various embarrassing attempts to establish his role with the 2020 Summit, the Fuel Watch and Grocery Watch websites, etc. The market crash was a blessing for him, as he then had a crisis to handle, which he has done so in the most visible possible way by finding things to spend money on. So much so that it is becoming difficult to keep track of.

So far there has been the $6.4 billion handout to the car industry, which followed on from earlier subsidies for Toyota to build hybrid vehicles in Australia, also $22 million to keep the precarious ABC Learning childcare centres open for a few more weeks, with talk of a full bailout to come. In the public sector Rudd has given local councils $300 million to spend, on the proviso that they must spend it quickly, and it 'is only the beginning'. While those on a pension are not forgotten with $1,400 or so to ease the burden of the crisis on those with the least means, though as Rudd argues, spending it on anything will do, such as “replacing an old appliance” (like replacing your old CRT TV with a 1080p plasma screen).

In a short space of time so much is being spent that it is difficult to keep account of, and there is a growing expectation that the $40 billion surplus accumulated by Costello will soon be gone, and deficit spending and raiding retirement funds will be the next phase in 'stimulating the economy'. There are very good arguments against stimulus packages, both from a theoretical and experiential standpoint, but I won't get into that now, as it seems that the course is set, and come what may, we're going to blow many billions of dollars over the next few years.

The car industry looks likely to be the recipient of the lion's share of bailout money, not because it employs very many people, but more that it is a national icon, and source of collective prestige. Australia is hardly alone in seeking prestige through a redundant car industry; the US is cursed with an even worse car industry that is even more dependent on state protection, and there are myriad minor countries like Malaysia that have engaged in car manufacturing for no other reason than fiat of national ego. We are going to spend $6.4 billion and counting just to replicate what is already commonplace throughout the developed and semi-developed world, without giving very much thought as to why we regard this as so terribly important.

So what else should we waste a huge amount of money on? There is constant chatter of developing infrastructure, without really stating what is meant by this, just that some new infrastructure will be able to facilitate more business activity. This could mean more new and efficient wharves to improve our export capability, but that would be over the Maritime union's dead body. Perhaps they could develop an urban and national integrated high speed rail service, but with the red tape of environmental impact studies, the necessary land resumptions, objections lodged in the courts, and interference from the incumbent transport lobby, this is unlikely to ever happen unless Rudd starts calling himself Il Duce.

Another possibility, and certainly a popular one, would be to get the so-called Broadband Revolution underway by the government ignoring Telstra's demand for monopoly control, and building it themselves as a public works program. And not the 25mbps as initially floated, but 100mbps as France, Finland, Holland, and other European countries are soon to adopt. While it may not stimulate the economy all that much, at least everyone would get to enjoy it while they are unemployed, which is a lot more than can be said for industry bailouts. However, with a Communications Minister like Stephen Conroy, who is maniacally hell-bent on destroying Australia's internet infrastructure rather than building it, we can safely assume nothing positive will happen on this front.

Thus given the need to 1. waste money, 2. on something of national prestige, and 3. pretend it is somehow going to stimulate the economy, we must look elsewhere for an object of our collective munificence, and I propose that elsewhere be space. It is now little remembered, but in 1967 Australia was actually the fourth country in the world to launch a satellite successfully. Albeit this was mostly on the back of borrowed hardware, it shows the intellectual ability to manage a space program quite readily exists in Australia, and with appropriate incentives, bright young students can be steered into science rather than Bachelors of Aboriginal Studies at the local degree mill.

Of course we will have to in-source much of the technical and scientific talent until such time there is a self-supporting space-science culture in Australia, so immigration policy will have to reflect this need. Rather than import an annual 25,000 unskilled migrants from the Pacific to pick fruit, as was proposed not so long ago, we would be compelled to actively entice the very best scientific minds in the world to come here. First we could start canvassing in Russia, where our higher wages and sunnier climate could be very attractive to snow-bound scientists who probably wish Global Warming was real. Then we can sound out employees of the European Space Agency, many of whom are probably sick of the endless committee meetings about which country gets to do what. (“We will only allow Hungarian solar panels if the rocket nozzles are made in France!”, “French rocket nozzles! Germany makes the best rocket nozzles!”) Even NASA should not be overlooked, there must be countless scientists and engineers feeling despondent being trapped in a space program that has been moribund since the 1960's. Depressed at continually patching up the Space Shuttle, the world's worst launch vehicle, with no replacement in sight, and the increasing possibility that President Obama will cancel the Constellation/Orion project, which in itself was little more than an updating of the Gemini/Apollo era hardware, many of the more ambitious NASA employees would jump at the chance to participate in a space program with real objectives, even if they incurred a pay cut by doing so.

So with the genuine skills shortage addressed, we can then set about developing launch facilities in the desert and thus also provide a much needed stimulus to the rural economy, as well as redistribute the population further inwards and relieve pressure from the more densely populated eastern seaboard. No doubt Bob Brown will say that it is violating aboriginal land rights, and that rocket launches will disturb the sleeping habits of an endangered sub-species of cockroach only found in the Simpson Desert, but the Liberals will almost certainly vote with the ALP to nullify any objections raised by the Greens. So this is a project that will enjoy bipartisan political support, helping to unite all Australian's around a common national goal.

As for the manufacture of space hardware this will no doubt take some time to achieve, but with the closing down of Ford and Holden factories this should permit the refactoring of much of our existing manufacturing base that includes skills and assembly processes to enable us to produce rocket engines and all the accompanying hardware required. A good starting point would be to buy a large number of Soyuz launchers from Russia in order to reverse-engineer them so that we can make all constituent parts ourselves allowing us to use Australian made Soyuz launchers for our initial steps into space. Once we have brought ourselves up to speed on the current state of space technology, then we will feel more confident in developing our own hardware for the next phase of our destiny in space, to colonise Mars, and claim the entire planet as an Australian territory.

To establish permanent settlement on Mars will require more than just the ability to get to Mars, but also a reliable and regular supply line to transport large amounts of supplies and personnel at optimal cost and efficiency. The more you do it, the cheaper it gets. This will require space stations to orbit both Earth and Mars so that interplanetary services are not burdened with having to act as launch vehicles also. Possibly rather than using planetary launch vehicles a ribbon supported elevator can be employed to cheaply convey materials and personal into space at either end.

Once Mars is settled and permanently defended by the Australian Space Force from counter-claims, we can then decide exactly what to do with it. This will almost certainly include ventures by BHP and Rio Tinto to mine Mars for whatever minerals found there, including the large deposits of subterranean ice known to exist on Mars. Once the colonies approach resource independence from Earth, then even larger populations can be supported who will be strongly in favour of terraforming with an eventual goal of making the air breathable, the soil able to grow grass, gum trees and other Australian flora, which can then provide feed for kangaroos, koalas, and emus. Once consolidated on Mars, Australia can extend its hand even further into space to establish a galactic empire, and finally throughout the universe the common greeting whether you are in the Andromeda Galaxy or the Magellenic Clouds will be “G'day mate!”

If all this sounds fancifully expensive, consider that for 2008, NASA's operating budget is a mere $17 billion US, well short of the Australian $40 billion annual budget surplus even when taking the exchange rate into account. Also NASA is a notoriously wasteful and inefficient organisation that has a knack for attaining lowest possible value per dollar spent, we can surely do much better. We can afford this right now, and only our leadership lacks the vision or ambition to do so. Now I have absolutely no doubt that Kevin Rudd is reading this, as the net filter trials would have tagged all pages that mention his name and forwarded them to his office for closer scrutiny. So Mr. Rudd, I implore you to stop throwing money at lost causes and instead make the universe an Aussie one.