Looking up from Down Under in 2025: Re-investigating Australian attitudes to national space activities

Executive summary

Space is not only integrated into Australian life, from government initiatives to the day-to-day experiences of Australians, but it is also growing in importance as a sector. Following the Australian Federal Election and ahead of the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, the Australasian Centre for Space Governance, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and UNSW Canberra conducted a comprehensive, nationally representative survey of attitudes on space. This survey builds on the first-ever survey on Australian public opinion and space, conducted in 2023. The 2025 survey reveals that while general interest and knowledge levels of space activity have moderately increased since 2023, many Australians feel they are not aware of, nor properly informed about, domestic space activities. At the same time, while supportive of space initiatives, Australians prioritise other sectors as more directly relevant to them.

Australians do recognise the importance of space activity for national security, the economy, planetary defence and scientific progress, but this recognition does not always translate into understanding, whether on the impact of space on our everyday life or awareness of current initiatives. It also does not always necessarily translate into support for government investment.¹ Most Australians express they lack a clear sense of the nation’s direction in space activities, but whatever the way forward, believe that there should be a mix of developing sovereign capability with strengthening partnerships with allies.

Finally, the report highlights the need to develop messages that speak to a range of different Australian audiences about the important role of space and our reliance on space-based technologies. Given our findings on the associations Australians have with space, particularly around national security and the environment, this presents an opportunity for policymakers and those within the space sector to develop more targeted messaging and education initiatives on the purposes and everyday benefits of space for a broader scope of Australians, especially those without a pre-existing interest in outer space activities.

Introduction

Space-based activities and technologies underpin the daily lives of Australians, the national and global economy, and national security. In turn, public support is vital in determining how and to what extent the nation engages in space activities. Based on a comprehensive national survey led by the Australasian Centre for Space Governance (ACSG), this report provides new and unique insights into how Australians think about and understand Australia’s space activities in 2025. It builds upon the first ever comprehensive survey of Australian public opinion on space conducted by the ACSG in 2023, as well as data from the Space Industry Association Australia (SIAA).² Both surveys demonstrated that there was general interest in space among Australians, but awareness and support were less firm. Many respondents did not express an opinion when asked questions about space or did not see space as having a direct impact on their lives. In addition, while supportive of space, Australians felt that other sectors should be of higher priority.

In the two short years since the first data on Australian public opinion was collected, there has been much attention in the media on major international players such as Elon Musk, activities such as Blue Origin’s commercial spaceflights, and the role of satellites in conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere. In September 2025, Australia will again host the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), bringing up to 10,000 space professionals to Sydney. More broadly, Australian space activities have continued to progress steadily, including both launches and launch attempts. Australia's space sector is expanding as a small yet significant contributor to the national economy, employing thousands of Australians, increasing productivity and serving as an integral component of a range of other industries.

At the same time, many of the challenges faced by the Australian space sector in 2023 remain. Appropriate funding, workforce creation, and a national direction for Australia’s space efforts are all barriers that have been repeatedly identified by space scholars and advocates. The Australian Department of Defence's JP9102 satellite communications project was shelved in late 2024, following the cancellation of the National Mission for Earth Observation the previous year. As it has often done throughout Australia’s long space history, the Australian Government assessed that national needs were better met by allocating funds elsewhere and preferring international partnerships for the provision of the nation’s satellite data needs.³ The cancellation of these two national satellite missions was met with criticism across the sector, highlighting the risks of foreign dependencies; however, before our national survey in 2023, it was impossible to know how much the public was aware of any programs or their cancellation, and the level of support for these decisions. It is also unclear how informed the general public is about these developments and trends, even as Australia’s dependence on space grows.

Against this backdrop, the 2025 survey was conducted via a collaboration between ACSG, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and UNSW Canberra, with funding and support from SIAA, the peak body and voice of Australia’s commercial space sector. This new survey sought to assess trends in Australian attitudes towards space, specifically concerning public knowledge of Australian space efforts and views of its space future. The survey also established the foundations of a longitudinal dataset to track changes in public opinion on space activity over time. It additionally sought to develop an understanding of questions crucial for the space industry and policymakers, such as workforce development and space technology’s intersection with the broader economy. Understanding public opinion is critical for identifying where there might be gaps in knowledge, how the space sector can address those gaps, and assessing the level of public support decision-makers may receive when making decisions on Australia’s role as a regional and global space actor.

Assessing the Australian public’s attitudes toward national space activities in 2025 is particularly timely, given the issues at the forefront of the May Federal Election. These included climate change, the economy, strategic independence amid current geopolitical shifts and Australia’s role in the Indo-Pacific region. Although space was not mentioned prominently in public discourse in the lead-up to the election, space-based capabilities such as data and connectivity are essential contributors to all these issues. Moreover, the International Astronautical Congress is hosted by a different country each year, and Australia’s space industry has attracted this significant event twice in a decade. After being held in Adelaide in 2017, when the creation of an Australian Space Agency was announced, it will be held again in Sydney in September 2025. This speaks to the importance of Australia’s space sector internationally, but it has been unclear whether this importance also translates nationally. Gauging public opinion on space at a time when the topic is actively discussed by the media, the public and policymakers plays a vital role in addressing broader policy questions related to Australian space activities and investments.

Methodology

To assess these questions, the authors employed iLink Research Services, which conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,500 adults in Australia. Respondents were asked 30 questions, some of which replicated the survey questions from 2023, and some of which were new. The survey received ethics approval from The University of Sydney (2025/HE000439). The survey was fielded in early July 2025 using iLink’s online panel comprising Australian citizens over the age of 18, living in Australia. Our sample was weighted to ensure respondents broadly represented the Australian public in geographic locations, political preferences, income brackets, age and gender.⁴

Aware but not understood: Australians’ knowledge of space activities

Establishing a baseline of general Australian attitudes and knowledge regarding local and international space activity is a crucial part of understanding Australian public opinion on space. It enables stakeholders to track changes in public opinion over time, identify priorities or gaps in their knowledge, and develop targeted strategies for public outreach and engagement to generate support for future endeavours. Whether to generate a broader social license or to talk directly to decision makers, understanding Australian attitudes towards space is a vital first step.

When asked how space affected their everyday lives, more Australians responded affirmatively that space impacts their lives in important ways than in the negative, with 42.4% agreeing compared to only 18.7% who did not. This was an increase from the 2023 report, where 35.9% of Australians agreed that space affected their lives on an everyday basis and a slight decline from 19.2% who disagreed. There were fewer neutral responses to this question than in 2023, with only 38.9% neutral in 2025 compared to 44.9% in 2023. By comparison, Australians certainly see space infrastructure as important for the nation, as 55.9% agreed that it is critical infrastructure, compared to only 11.1% who do not (with 33.0% neutral).

To assess respondents’ views of the effects of space on them in another way, we asked respondents to estimate the degree of impact on their everyday life if Australia were to lose its space capability. The use of a sliding scale allowed for more nuance to be presented, whereas before there would likely have been a large proportion of neutral answers. As Figure 1 shows, the three most chosen positions on the scale were the second lowest level of disruption and then the two choices either side of the absolute middle, suggesting that Australians were more likely to estimate that losing space capability would cause less disruption (57.5% below the middle choice) to their day than more, and were still unlikely to hold strong opinions about the level of disruption. It is also possible that the limited timeframe of a single day causes respondents to minimise the impacts of any such loss of space-based technologies. More broadly, as discussed below, there is a strong possibility that Australians have a narrow conception of space technology and its effects, and a limited understanding of how often they use space-reliant technology, such as for navigation, in the course of a single day.

Australians reported they know slightly more about space than they did two years ago. In comparison to 2023, there was an increase in Australians’ knowledge of global space activities from 27.5% to 30.6% in 2025, with a decline in neutral responses from 34.4% in 2023 to 30.8% in 2025, and a very slight increase in negative responses from 38.1% to 38.6%. However, when asked whether they follow the activities of the Australian Space Agency, 45.6% of Australians reported not following the Agency’s activities in 2025, compared to 33.3% in 2023. Roughly the same percentage strongly agreed or agreed when asked if they’re following the Agency’s activities (19.7% in 2023 to 19.2% in 2025). There was, however, a marked decrease in Australians who are completely unaware of the Space Agency’s existence, with only 13.5% unaware of the Agency in 2025 compared to 20.8% in 2023. Understanding this shift in more detail would necessitate further study.

More Australians follow US space efforts than those of their own country. When asked if they follow the activities of NASA, 26.5% of Australians agreed they follow NASA, compared to only 19.2% who follow the Australian Space Agency. However, slightly fewer Australians are disinterested in the Australian Space Agency than in NASA — 47.2% to 45.6% — and slightly fewer are neutral toward whether they followed the Agency, at 21.7%, in comparison to the 26.2% who are neutral towards NASA.

Australians generally lack awareness of their nation’s current space initiatives. Although Australia engages in a variety of space activities — such as hosting launches, assisting partner countries and companies with re-entry of space objects, conducting research and participating in space diplomacy — relatively few Australians reported having heard of these efforts. Of recent space efforts, Australians were most aware of NASA launches from the Northern Territory (38%), the tracking station Tidbinbilla (26%) and the Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg (21%). They knew the least about Australia signing the Artemis Accords (11%) and the Spaceflight (Launches and Returns) Act 2018 (11%).

Far fewer Australians reported awareness of recent space events compared with those in Australia’s space past. The 2023 survey showed that 58.1% of Australians were aware of the film The Dish, for instance. Australians were also relatively more likely to be aware of the country’s support for the moon landings in 1969 and 1970s (48.6%) and Skylab’s re-entry over Perth in 1979 (39.5%), than they were of more recent efforts such as the Australian Space Agency’s Roo-ver mission (19.7%), the Defence Department’s Space Command (19.1%) and space launch companies such as Southern Launch, Equatorial Launch Australia and Gilmour Space Technologies (14%). More Australians were aware of the two Australian-born astronauts who flew space missions as US citizens, Andrew Thomas and Paul Scully-Power (36.7%), than Katherine Bennell-Pegg, who is the first Australian to train under Australia’s flag but has not flown in space.

The low interest and knowledge in space activity — despite the high value placed on space capability and activity demonstrated elsewhere in the survey — may be a result of insufficient or ineffective communication and information. The 2023 report noted that Australians primarily received information about space from news outlets and that self-assessed knowledge levels about space may be low because messaging from the Australian Government may not be reaching certain sections of the population. When asked in 2025 whether information about what Australia is doing in space is readily available, only 28% answered that they agreed, with 35% disagreeing and 37% neutral. These results indicate that information about space either lacks saliency, is inaccessible or is not effectively targeted towards individuals without a pre-existing interest in space. Each of these factors may contribute to lower levels of engagement and knowledge among the Australian public. Additionally, as highlighted in the 2023 report, some Australians may simply prioritise other national or personal interests over space. To encourage greater engagement and support, the methods of communication and the messages themselves should be addressed.

Do Australians see their country as a player in space? Respondents were asked whether they agreed that Australia was a spacefaring nation, defined simply as a “country that can use space to achieve its national goals.” Of the responses, 34.7% of Australians agreed that Australia could be defined as spacefaring, with 25.3% disagreeing and 40.1% neutral. Australians were further asked to define those elements of a country’s space activities that were the most important for it to be considered ‘spacefaring’. The majority of Australians were equally split between three markers of a spacefaring nation: a developed domestic space industry (18.8%), having a space agency (18.5%) and the ability to launch objects from its territory (18.2%). By contrast, a program of human spaceflight (4.9%) and simply self-defining as spacefaring (4.2%) were chosen as the least important factors.

Commercial and government space activities: Important but not a priority

Given the centrality of government regulation and support to Australia’s space sector, public opinion on the local space industry is an important factor in the country’s future in space. Just over half of our respondents agreed that the commercial space sector is important for the broader economy (52.7%), while only 10.4% disagreed and 37.0% were neutral. This is nearly equivalent to 2023 in negative and neutral responses. When asked why the sector was important, the response “it creates jobs” was selected most frequently by 56.7% of respondents, with “it provides Australia direct access to its own space assets and capability” and “it makes Australia more competitive as a destination for investment and high-skilled labour” the next two highest at 41.5% and 42.1% respectively. Only 17.8% selected that they did not believe a commercial space sector benefits the Australian economy.

While Australians generally support the commercial space sector, they did not value it as highly in relation to other Australian sectors. This result broadly matches the result observed by SIAA in 2023. When asked to rank the most important domestic industries, the space sector came in tenth out of eleven options, only above the arts, culture, and creative industry; only 14.5% of Australians selected it among their top three industries to develop (Figure 7). In comparison, the renewable energy industry and the agriculture and farming industry were placed in the top three by 48.8% and 47.6% of Australians, respectively, with the former ranked as the number one most important industry 24.7% of the time. As SIAA found in 2023, 83% of respondents felt investment was needed in industries other than space.

The economic sectors prioritised by Australians closely reflect the broader concerns of the 2025 electorate. Climate change remains a considerable concern for most Australians, with renewable energy being of particular interest due to environmental sustainability and individual issues such as energy costs.⁵ The importance of the manufacturing sector was reflected in a recent Lowy Poll that found 83% of Australians supported making goods in Australia, even if they cost more.⁶ Similarly, a 2023 poll found that 74% of Australians were concerned about the decline in funding for universities.⁷

Approaching the question of the space sector’s relative importance a different way, respondents were asked which technologies Australia should prioritise for investment. Here, cybersecurity was overwhelmingly placed in the top three choices, with two-thirds of respondents believing that Australia should prioritise spending on the technology. It is possible to see how close association with a technology and its everyday effects (particularly in the spate of recent large-scale data breaches) impacts respondents’ perceptions of an issue’s importance. Other technologies lagged behind cybersecurity in perceived importance. Biotechnology was ranked second, with 40.4% of Australians selecting it as a top three priority, followed by artificial intelligence at 33.0% and quantum computing at 28.0%.

Australians’ views on which space technologies should be prioritised appear to be influenced by the extent to which individuals interact with, or perceive to be impacted by, these technologies. Ground stations and satellites were considered priorities alongside biotechnology and AI, with 34.9% of Australians placing this category in the top three. By contrast, space travel and exploration technologies (such as rocketry and rovers) were considered important by only 21.9% of Australians and were the least likely to be placed in the top three.

A question regarding which sectors of the economy could benefit from space technologies provides further insights into how Australians perceive the impact and significance of space in their personal lives and those of the nation. Sectors most closely associated with space were more frequently identified as potential beneficiaries of space technology. Earth and space science (39.1%), meteorological and extreme weather awareness (34.7% and national security (31.7%) all ranked highly, with communications and internet (25.4%), position navigation and timing (23.3%) and climate change response (23.2%) next. By contrast, agriculture, mining and urban planning — all activities where the role of space technology is less identifiable — were less likely to be identified as beneficiaries from space capabilities.

These findings are consistent with the results of SIAA’s 2023 survey, in which respondents were asked whether they could identify if a particular technology or service relied on space-based technology. Respondents were more likely to recognise technologies closely associated with space or considered ‘high tech’ — such as GPS, defence missile systems, mobile phones and aviation — than industries less culturally linked to space, including banking, mining, emergency services and carbon emissions estimates. Coupled with the limited availability of information about Australian space activities and space’s importance more generally identified in the 2023 survey, these results continue to suggest that there is a knowledge gap about how space interacts with a range of industries and technologies.

Human spaceflight programs are among the most recognisable and expensive elements of any nation’s space efforts. When asked whether investment in an Australian astronaut program would benefit Australia, 51.5% agreed and only 13.3% disagreed (with 35.2% neutral). Similarly, SIAA’s 2023 survey found that 65% of respondents felt that an astronaut program would be of benefit to the country. In our 2025 survey, respondents identified two primary reasons for the importance of the astronaut program: its benefits in advancing research and development (27.0%) and its potential to create or strengthen partnerships with Australian allies (22.2%) (Figure 8). Despite the strong showing of support for an astronaut program in these responses, a fifth of Australians in the survey selected that they did not think such a program would benefit Australia. It is worth noting that respondents believing there is a benefit to an astronaut program might not indicate that they necessarily support funding over other national priorities.

Challenges and risks for Australia’s space capabilities: National security, the environment and jobs

The 2023 survey highlighted that Australians see space and national security as closely related. This new iteration of the survey sought to form a deeper understanding of Australian opinion on the challenges and risks in and from space, not least the commonly raised issue of sovereign control over space capabilities.⁸ While 48.5% of those surveyed agreed that Australia has the capability to achieve its sovereign goals in space, there was again a high number (35.1%) of neutral respondents, with a further 16.4% of respondents disagreeing. Given that over half of the Australian public is unsure about Australia's capabilities in this area, it is likely there are a range of reasons for this uncertainty. It could indicate that the public is uninformed about those goals or Australia’s capacity, that they lack confidence in the Australian Government’s capabilities, or that they may have a different understanding of the relative importance of having sovereign capabilities and goals in space compared with other concerns.

Respondents felt that Australia would be best served by a mix of sovereign capability and engagement with allies. Respondents were asked to rate the degree of sovereign capability Australia should aspire to on a sliding scale from “Australia should only rely on developing its own sovereign space capabilities” on one side of the scale, “Australia should rely on a mix of its own sovereign space capabilities and those of its partners,” in the middle of the scale, and “Australia should solely rely on its partners, such as the United States, and not pursue further development of sovereign space capabilities” on the other side. Of the total, 65.8% of respondents clustered around the centre, with 12.5% moving towards sovereign development and 21.7% towards sole reliance on our partners. While it is evident in these results that Australians expect cooperation with their international partners, they also expect that Australia will contribute to the development of its own space capabilities.

When it comes to using space in support of Australia’s security, Australians show a preference for the Australian Defence Force to prioritise space alongside other areas of defence. Of the responses, 49.1% agreed that space should be prioritised, with 31.7% of respondents neutral and 19.3% disagreeing. This may reflect the recent coverage of military uses of space in the news, such as the case of Viasat and Starlink in the war between Russia and Ukraine, or the perception that space technology is advanced and therefore desirable in a defence setting. It may also reflect the close association Australians have with national security and space, identified elsewhere in the survey.

When asked about space-based risks, Australians were more concerned about accidents and environmental damage than threats to sovereignty or Australia’s capability as a space actor. In their top three space-based risks facing the country, Australians were most likely to cite the risks of accumulating space debris (41.9%), satellite malfunctions that cause harm to humans or the environment (36.9%), lack of oversight of the private space sector (36.4%), attacks on space infrastructure (31.5%) and Earth being hit by asteroids (25.9%). Australia’s sovereign space capabilities were identified as a risk by only 25.8% of respondents. Nonetheless, it did rank higher than the impact of political polarisation (24.9%) and the lack of a domestic space workforce (22.3%).

As discussed in the previous section, Australians place a high importance on job creation as a reason for supporting the commercial space sector and seeing it as important to the economy. However, they do not feel that workforce is a significant risk when it comes to space, at least relative to other potential risks, despite concerns within the sector around developing a space workforce of sufficient size and with the requisite skills. When asked about how best to tackle these issues, Australians favoured building better communication about opportunities in the space sector and increasing funding for primary, secondary and university STEM education. By contrast, Australians were less likely to support providing funding directly to the space industry itself.

Uncertain about the future: Next steps in Australian space

Much of the expert conversation around Australian space activities is about where the country should go next, what its priorities should be in space and the importance of growing the sector. Similarly, culturally, space has long been seen as ‘new’ (despite the sector now being almost seventy years old) and future focused. However, Australians continue to be uncertain about the country’s space future. Of the responses, 44.6% of Australians disagreed that they had a clear sense of Australia’s future direction, with an additional 33.3% neutral, leaving just over one-fifth of Australians with a sense of where the nation is going in space. Potentially reflecting the lack of significant space policy announcements and the cancellation of various initiatives, there was a small decline in the percentage of Australians reporting that they understood the country’s direction when compared with 2023.

When asked about the current level of spending, more Australians (26.4%) felt that we are spending too little on space, rather than too much (8.9%). This is an increase on the 2023 numbers: a greater percentage of Australians now feel that spending should be increased. Nonetheless, 28.8% of Australians think that we’re spending the right amount, and 35.9% don’t know either way. These numbers remained the same across the political spectrum. It is illustrative to compare the Australian case with that of the United States, where the 2024 General Social Survey found that 65.1% of Americans believed space spending to be about right, and 24.7% too little. In contrast to Australians, Americans were more likely to have an opinion and less likely to be neutral.⁹

Australians were strongly supportive of space-focused scientific research that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, even if there were no immediate benefits, sometimes described as ‘blue sky’ research. Of the total, 58.4% of Australians supported government funding for this type of research, while only 9.6% did not. In common with other questions, about a third of Australians were neutral. By contrast, Australians were less certain about whether Indigenous perspectives should be incorporated into space policy, split in almost equal thirds between agreeing (34.4%), neutral (37.6%) and disagreeing (28%). This may reflect a lack of understanding of how Indigenous knowledge and perspectives might be integrated into the country’s approach to space. Notably, except for the question about knowledge of NASA, this question attracted the highest ‘strongly disagree’ response (12.4%), reflecting the highly polarised nature of Indigenous issues. This is in part a product of the significant differences in responses according to voting preference, with far less support among those who would have voted for the Coalition and One Nation.

We also asked Australians what percentage of government funding for research and development in science and technology should be allocated to space, allowing respondents to select any value between 0-100%. While the most common answer was between 1-10% (17.6%), a large majority of respondents (65.8%) chose a number between 11% and 60%. Since it would be unusual to spend high percentages of government research and development funding on any single research area, these selections likely reinforce existing research, which shows many citizens have difficulty conceptualising government spending. It was, however, encouraging that respondents saw a need for greater investment in space-related research and development, and that no respondent selected 0% as an option.

Conclusion: Bridging the gap between interest and support

The survey was conducted shortly after the 2025 federal election and a few months before the International Astronautical Congress returns to Australia, positioning it at a time when respondents may be particularly attuned to issues of government spending and outer space activities. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that the sector’s visibility and saliency among the public remain a work in progress.

Although there are signs of a small increase in public knowledge and interest in space in Australia, public understanding of the importance and value of space-based technologies and capabilities is still low. This appears especially true regarding Australia’s reliance on satellites and the importance space plays for other industries. As seen in the survey results, this gap may be linked to the information Australians receive about space and could be influencing the relatively low levels of support expressed by respondents for government spending on space activities. As a result, there are opportunities for the space industry, the Australian Space Agency, researchers and experts to develop a more cohesive and coherent approach in connecting space-based technologies to our personal lives, the economy and broader national interests.

Despite the space sector’s struggle to break through to the public, there are issues in which space is more visible, particularly in national security and planetary protection. Respondents across our 2023 and 2025 surveys closely associate national security with space, continually supporting its inclusion in defence priorities, and recognise the importance of addressing issues of space debris and environmental protection. There was also a correlation between those respondents with greater understanding of the space sector and increased support for Australia’s space activities. In turn, when there is lower awareness or uncertainty around issues in space, there is a corresponding decrease in support. This again underscores the need for communication and public education strategies that can both inform the public of the importance of space and also increase the number who recognise the importance of supporting the growth of the industry.

The survey collected demographic data that added nuance to the results and is important for identifying the different degrees of engagement with space across different audiences; this detail was not included for reasons of brevity but offers fruitful opportunities for further analysis. For instance, there were noticeable differences in responses between men and women throughout the survey results. For example, women tend to respond ‘neutral’ more often than men, and to report a lower level of knowledge about space, while men feel that information is more readily available than women. Men were similarly more likely to report that they had a sense of the country’s direction in space than women. However, as indicated in the 2024 report ‘Looking Up From Down Under: Attitudes on Space by Gender’,¹⁰ there may be constructed reasons for this difference. That report examined the 2023 survey results by gender and compared it with existing research on gender disparity when it comes to opinions on STEM issues more broadly. For example, women are less represented, retained and advanced in space higher education and space workforces, which may impact interest in and support for space-based science and technology initiatives; girls and women who are not in STEM fields are more likely than men to underestimate their knowledge of science and technology and, relatedly, to express fewer opinions on these issues; women are still in the vast minority among leaders in the space sector, which can contribute to the view that space is a masculine enterprise.

As we look forward to the next iteration of this survey in 2026, the authors see the need to continue to explore how the public — or different sections of the public — conceptualises space, the Australian space sector and space technologies. For instance, we ask about sovereignty, but we may need to consider how we measure understanding of sovereignty in future iterations. In turn, this will allow the analysis of what may be the key next step for research in this area of space policy: what messaging and information might cut through to different audiences in the Australian public, particularly those that might grow the public’s understanding of the reach and impact of space, its importance to individuals, business and the nation, and the challenges and opportunities that might exist in developing the space sector.

Ultimately, this and previous surveys, as comprehensive snapshots of public attitudes towards space, have sought to lay the crucial foundation for understanding space’s place in Australia. As the geopolitical shifts of a multipolar world continue to unfold, Australia must carefully consider its international partnerships and dependencies when it comes to the critical data and services provided by space systems and must incorporate space capabilities into any path it charts for its immediate and long-term future. As the survey indicates, most Australians do not have a sense of where Australia is going in terms of space activities and investment, a reality that requires serious attention. At the same time, space continues to be expensive and difficult, and public support is key to government investment. Reiterating the conclusion of the 2023 survey report, these surveys help demonstrate that the Australian public is an important partner in the country’s development of its space future, albeit one that, like the sector, is still growing in its engagement with space.