Merici was pleased to welcome Minister Mick Gentleman on Thursday morning for a tour of our Makerspace and to meet some of our engineering students. Among his other portfolio responsibilities, Minister Gentleman is the Minister assisting the Chief Minister on Advanced Technology and Space Industries.
He spoke to the students about the ACT’s bid to host the Australian Space Agency and its push to strengthen the existing hub of space-related industries and testing and education facilities in the territory. He also mentioned Canberra’s significant place in space exploration as the location of the historical Honeysuckle Creek and Orroral Valley tracking stations and the current Tidbinbilla tracking station, and talked about his personal connection with that history.
The students explained aspects of their current rocketry projects to the Minister and showed him some of their rocket component designs that were being constructed on our 3D printers. Since we currently need to travel over the border for our rocket launches, we were keen to know if legislation could be modified to allow model rocket launches to be legal in the ACT: the Minister was positive that was an issue that could be dealt with.
We would like to thank the Minister for taking time out to visit our students.
