Space Dish: Australia’s Role in the Moon Landing and a Look at Its Own Past

Australia’s astronomical infrastructure, with its large number of transmitting and tracking facilities, had long been part of the U.S. space efforts by the time of the first manned lunar landing and was ultimately essential to the transmission of live images from the Moon on July 21, 1969—and thus to the U.S.’s provisional victory in the Space Race. In this paper, therefore, Australia is considered from two points of view. First, Australia’s role in the moon landing as a, if not the, media event is examined primarily in terms of its discursivation in the Australian media. From this, it can be shown that the technological enabling of the perception of the event sometimes seems more important than that of the moon landing itself. On the other hand, it will be considered to what extent the transmission of the first manned moon landing in the context of the Cold War played and still plays a central role in finding a national identity for Australia beyond its existence as a proverbial satellite state of the USA, even long after the Cold War. Particular attention is therefore paid to Australia’s relevance for the global perception of the event on the one hand, and the importance of this role for Australia’s national identity and political self-image on the other. For this purpose, the initial situation and the contemporary reporting on the space race itself as well as predominantly on the Australian contribution to the moon landing and especially its transmission will be considered first. These observations will then be put in relation to the retrospective negotiation of the events of the summer of 1969, which will be examined on two levels. On the one hand, the representation on the part of Australian public agencies and institutions will be examined, and on the other, the negotiation of Australia’s own role in the moon landing in the 2000 Australian film The Dish.