Now, of course, New Zealand hasn’t sent astronauts to the moon and we’ve never had a Kiwi astronaut. Actually, we’ve never sent anything into space from the Land of the Long White Cloud, BUT we do have some serious space connections.

One of my heroes is Wellingtonian, Sir William Pickering; he was the Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1954 to 1976 and established himself as a senior NASA luminary. Pickering was extensively involved in America’s unmanned programme to explore the Solar System and appeared on the cover of TIME magazine twice. In my opinion, he’s right up there with Sir Ed but doesn’t get the same recognition. As an aside, I think New Zealanders generally don’t recognise our heroes enough (unless they play rugby), so it’s superb to see The New Zealand Edge site celebrate inspirational New Zealanders.

Many talented Kiwis have made significant contributions to space research:

• Frank Bateson, OBE, was instrumental in establishing the Mount John Observatory near Lake Tekapo and he founded the Variable Star Section (VSS) of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. The VSS observed variable stars and collated reports on stars from both professional and amateur observers throughout the world.
• Professor John Hearnshaw is a Professor of Astronomy at Canterbury University who is internationally recognised for his research on extrasolar planets.
• Lester Waugh emigrated to Britain in 1974 and then went on to become an engineering manager in charge of designing the ExoMars Rover. For five years he had worked with a team on getting a small British spacecraft on to the surface of Mars. It got there, but unfortunately that was as far as things went, as nobody was able to contact ‘Beagle 2′ once it landed.
• Professor Beatrice Tinsley performed ground-breaking research on how galaxies change and evolve over time and became Professor of Astronomy at Yale University.
• Though not technically a New Zealander, former Cook Islands Prime Minister Sir Thomas Davis was a graduate of Otago University and later went on to serve as the Cook Islands’ High Commissioner to New Zealand. During his early career he became a Space Surgeon for NASA and researched the biological effects of humans in space.

Check out this interesting article on New Zealand astronomy which mentions many key New Zealand astronomers.

And what about future New Zealand space heroes? In the past, space has been dominated by a select few government funded agencies, but now we’re starting to see a vibrant private space industry developing internationally. New Zealanders will certainly have a part to play in this.

Whether our forefathers came from Hawaii, Taiwan, England or wherever – they were explorers. New Zealand is geographically located on the fringe, the edge of civilization; those early explorers and immigrants couldn’t go any further. With our psyche and spirit of endeavor, I believe this century will see New Zealanders play a significant role in the physical exploration of space. Exploration is genetically ingrained in our population and space is the next frontier.