![\"Adam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ebd3c2662fe68b6c6107edefc93da58bc96a3cec.jpeg\")
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It was in the middle of May that Adam Gilmour began to worry that he would not, in fact, live in a city on the moon after all.<\/p>\n
Gilmour was standing inside mission control \u2013 a dark demountable filled with computers and cords and screens \u2013 monitoring the third attempted launch of his expensive, obstinate rocket, seven kilometres away on the coast of Bowen, gleaming brilliant white in the tropical Queensland sun, and refusing to budge.<\/p>\n
This rocket is named Eris, and names mean a lot to Gilmour. His own children bear those of Star Wars heroes: Ben, Leia and Allana. Eris is the name of a dwarf planet orbiting at the edge of our solar system, a place Gilmour says he would like to voyage to one day, and therefore a symbol of his soaring, galactic ambition. Unfortunately, Eris is also the Greek goddess of strife, and the rocket was beginning to embody the name of that deity, stranded on the launch site for 17 months, rusting in the salt spray off the nearby coastline. The only thing on fire was money, both Gilmour\u2019s and his investors\u2019: $4 million a month, every month for more than a year, his eponymous company having so far spent almost $200 million on the project.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a journey. Gilmour Space Technologies has endured not just stubborn and sometimes nose-diving rockets but fights with regulators, bad weather and crummy parts suppliers, to be right here, on the precipice of something completely new. Eris, you see, is powered by a revolutionary type of engine that has never before reached orbit (more on that later). A successful launch could put Gilmour, 51, on a potential path to challenging billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, while also whetting the appetites of generals looking for superfast war machines \u2013 not to mention proving that an amateur rocketman can get to orbit through sheer force of will.<\/p>\n
Eris is a temperamental piece of machinery \u2013 requiring Gilmour\u2019s engineers to scurry across her length, solving finicky problems before each take-off \u2013 and she will ascend only into the most gentle of breezes, both at ground level and high in the atmosphere. As Eris pointed skywards on her erector, chasing that landmark launch, the weather was finally, thankfully, calm. That\u2019s when an electrical fault caused the rocket\u2019s nose cone, or fairing, to fall off. (Note: this is a fairly significant problem, given the fairing is designed to carry a rocket\u2019s payload into orbit, then hinge itself open, revealing its pearl: usually a satellite, which is gently pushed away into space.)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was never-ending, and every month another $4 million was burning,\u201d bemoans Gilmour, who is wiry with sun-bleached red-blond hair, and often speaks with the excited urgency of a person being electrocuted. \u201cI remember being really, really blue.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adam Gilmour, co-founder & CEO at Gilmour Space Technologies south of Brisbane.Credit: Paul Harris<\/p>\n
So began the interminable wait for yet another launch window. After all, you can\u2019t just shoot a jet-powered hunk of steel into the sky whenever you want \u2013 the Civil Aviation Safety Authority needs to clear a huge geographical area around the launch pad, so that unsuspecting fishermen or kite-surfers don\u2019t get hit with an errant fuselage. All of which is how we get to the final desperate promise of July, with Gilmour granted a fourth launch window of a few days.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix days out, you\u2019re already up there, you\u2019re already charging the batteries for the rocket, it\u2019s almost about to roll out, and then you see the winds, and the winds suck,\u201d says Gilmour. \u201cAnd you\u2019re like\u2009\u2026\u2009\u2018Shit.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
The winds are too high on the first day. Too high on the second day. And on the third. Day four dawns hot and sticky but mercifully calm, so the rocket is fitted with its ceremonial payload. Musk once shot a Tesla Roadster into space. The cargo on board Eris? A single jar of Vegemite.<\/p>\n
Rockets are, of course, precision-engineered to the micrometre, so Gilmour controls every factor and variable until the final couple of minutes of the countdown. Then the rocket itself has control. It monitors its own systems, checks its telemetry, tests the winds and makes its own final decision to launch.<\/p>\n
At 8.29am on July 29, Eris initiates \u201cautosequence\u201d \u2013 what we non-rocketeers call a countdown \u2013 10, 9, 8 \u2026 \u2013 and Gilmour stares at his screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stakes were super high,\u201d he says now. \u201cWe\u2019d been delayed. And there was a risk we wouldn\u2019t get any follow-up funds if we couldn\u2019t get off the pad. It was do-or-die for me. We had to get off the pad.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a national science writer, I\u2019ve been covering Gilmour and Australia\u2019s fast-growing space industry for a handful of years, without much cut-through. But launching an actual rocket? That tends to sharpen the attention of newspaper editors, particularly when viral-albeit-shaky footage emerges.<\/p>\n
Gilmour\u2019s launchpad on Queensland\u2019s eastern edge is at the top of the Whitsundays, where beaches are fringed in shallow reefs and holidaymakers come to snorkel, sunbathe and bite into the fat gold flesh of the mangoes for which the area is known. Otherwise, Bowen is pretty flat. The only real raised spot is \u201cMount\u201d Nutt, which is 43 metres above sea level \u2013 higher if you count the big concrete water tank where locals gathered to watch the show. That\u2019s where Josh Keegan, a rocket enthusiast who goes by the online moniker \u201cAussienaut\u201d, had set up his livestream.<\/a><\/p>\n Keegan had been up there for hours on that day in July. Eris had missed her 8.33am launch time by one minute and it looked like another scrub, which is why you can hear a resigned sigh from Keegan in the footage. He remembers briefly turning away to deal with a technical issue, which is when the rocket finally moves, wobbling just a little. In his footage, clouds of white gas rise up above the tree line. A shout goes up from the crowd and Keegan spins back, training the camera on the rocket in time to show Eris floating, just above the tree-tops, then suddenly sliding right amid puffs of manoeuvring thrust.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hovering! It\u2019s hovering! It\u2019s hovering!\u201d he shouts, somewhat hopefully, despite clear evidence that the rocket is now actually falling, falling, falling. Finally the 23-metre, 30-tonne projectile disappears below the treeline. \u201cIt\u2019s\u2009\u2026\u2009gone! It\u2019s gone!\u201d Keegan yells. \u201cOh no! It did not go …\u201d<\/p>\n But it almost did go, which is why I find myself now driving up the Pacific Motorway past the Gold Coast\u2019s roller-coaster whorls to the rocket factory of Gilmour Space. From phone interviews, I had pegged Gilmour as a loudmouth entrepreneur \u2013 a brash guy making constant demands for more government funding while repeatedly missing launch windows. He has promised (and failed) to reach orbit in each of 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. \u201cHe is very loud. You want him to succeed,\u201d one space industry insider told me. \u201cBut I don\u2019t hate it that he blew up.\u201d<\/p>\n while Eris failed to launch in July, it did clear the pad, keeping the funds flowing to Gilmour Space as engineers continue to troubleshoot remaining issues.Credit: Gilmour Space Technologies<\/p>\n In person, the Adam Gilmour experience is different. The fervour is real, and personal. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have bases, permanent cities on the moon. And I\u2019d like to have one of them,\u201d he tells me. And I believe him \u2013 or, at least, I believe he believes.<\/p>\n Gilmour was born in Brisbane in 1973, the second of Brian and Dierdre\u2019s four children. Gilmour and his younger brother James were close to their grandfather Ken, a fitter and turner and amateur astronomer, who filled his house with home-made telescopes and star maps. \u201cHe used to take me on top of the roof of the house he built with his bare hands,\u201d says James. \u201cHe showed me the constellations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I think we\u2019re going to have bases, permanent cities on the moon. And I\u2019d like to have one of them.\u2019<\/p>\n Adam Gilmour<\/p>\n From Dierdre, who now has Alzheimer\u2019s, came the blessing of limitless self-belief. \u201cShe taught every child that there was no ceiling at all, always possibilities,\u201d says Brian. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty sad she does not know what they are doing.\u201d But he adds she would be impossibly proud of them, as he is. \u201cI haven\u2019t got any shadow of a doubt,\u201d he says. \u201cThey will land on the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n This disposition for doubtlessness seems strongest in Gilmour. \u201cI can build anything; anything that has been built by human beings, I can build it,\u201d he says. \u201cI could build a nuclear submarine. I don\u2019t want to, though \u2013 I\u2019m pretty happy building rockets.\u201d<\/p>\n Building nuclear subs and revolutionary rockets and moon bases\u2009\u2026\u2009It seems crazy, right? It is crazy. But Gilmour says crazy things with such absolute white-knuckle conviction that the people around him start to believe him, too. \u201cEveryone in this industry is a bit crazy,\u201d says Jamie Anderson, the company\u2019s former head of propulsion. \u201cI looked at him when he offered me the job and thought: \u2018You are crazy enough to do this.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n As kids, Gilmour and his brother James watched Star Trek and Star Wars, and James would flick through The Young Scientist Book of Spaceflight. He\u2019s still got a dog-eared copy, which will go in another thing the brothers plan to build one day: a spaceflight museum.<\/p>\n First, they had to make their way in the world. Gilmour went into banking \u2013 trading currencies and later derivatives for Citibank, eventually rising to the managing director\u2019s office in Singapore. James, meanwhile, became a salesman and then a business manager at Dell. Then the global financial crisis struck in 2007. Citibank needed a huge government bailout and its appetite for risk then contracted. Around the same time, an exciting new pool of risk was opening: entrepreneurial spaceflight.<\/p>\n The Apollo 11 mission that put Neil Armstrong on the moon was calculated to have cost $US2.9 billion in 2020 dollars. In 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded crewed vehicle to reach space \u2013 at a cost of about $US25 million. At home on his parents\u2019 farm on the Hawkesbury River in Brooklyn, NSW in 2011, Gilmour brought an idea to the dinner table.<\/p>\n \u201cHe originally pitched the idea to build a spaceplane. And a space-education initiative,\u201d says James. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say there was always a dream or a goal to start a rocket company.\u201d Dierdre told James he should join the company as well, and when Adam asked, he said yes straight away. \u201cI always knew,\u201d James says. \u201cWe wanted to do something special.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilmour Space\u2019s early years were nebulous and unsettled. There was a plan for a space theme park and astronaut training facility \u2013 complete with a Mars mock-up \u2013 at a strawberry farm the brothers bought on the Gold Coast. Then they thought they might build satellite components in Singapore. When they approached launch companies to test their components on an orbital flight, they were quoted $US8 million for a 20-kilogram test launch. \u201cI thought that was insane, and such a lousy price it would stifle the industry,\u201d says Gilmour. \u201cAnd I started thinking: \u2018these launch providers have got the market.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I could build a nuclear submarine. I don\u2019t want to, though \u2013 I\u2019m pretty happy building rockets.\u2019<\/p>\n Adam Gilmour<\/p>\n That might make Gilmour sound mercantile, but he\u2019s actually the dreamer. Literally. In high school he even won the Biggest Dreamer award. It\u2019s James who brings the attention to detail, and now runs the launch operation in Bowen, and Michelle, Gilmour\u2019s wife, who helps the brothers\u2019 partnership and the company work. As Gilmour Space\u2019s manager of communications, she\u2019s self-deprecating, insisting she knows little about rockets while explaining every detail of the factory. Space, however, is not her passion. \u201cI did it for Adam,\u201d she says. \u201cI said, \u2018Look, you earn more money than I do, I\u2019ll quit first, and I\u2019ll help where I can.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives us a lot to talk about,\u201d says Gilmour, when I ask about running a company with his spouse. \u201cI think it\u2019s good for me to see her pain, for her to see my pain, and understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n From left: James Gilmour, co-founder and head of Launch Site Operations with Liana Gilmour (James\u2019 partner) and Adam Gilmour, co-founder & CEO, and Michelle Gilmour, manager of communications at Gilmour Space Technologies.Credit: Paul Harris<\/p>\n Elon Musk started SpaceX by reading books and academic papers on rockets. Unprompted, Gilmour tells me his story \u201cis a little bit like Elon\u2019s\u201d. He, too, started with books and papers he\u2019d download from NASA\u2019s website. He explored buying off-the-shelf rocket parts but decided it would be cheaper to just develop his own. One key difference was their technology of choice: Gilmour had become fascinated by a promising but untried Soviet rocket design \u2013 the hybrid.<\/p>\n The modern \u201cbig rocket\u201d basically comes in two varieties. Solid-fuel rockets, like the Space Shuttle\u2019s boosters, are essentially slow-burning sticks of dynamite with a nozzle on the bottom. Liquid-fuelled rockets, such as SpaceX\u2019s Falcon, use complex and expensive engineering to mix and ignite fuel and oxygen in a much more powerful explosion.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n Hybrids combine a solid fuel and a liquid oxidiser. In theory, they are cheaper and simpler to build than liquid-fuel rockets, more powerful than solid-fuel rockets, and much less likely to explode than either. \u201cThis is why people say it is the holy grail of rocketry,\u201d says Jamie Anderson. \u201cYou can effectively start a rocket program from a light industrial shed in the middle of the suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n But hybrids pose a key technical challenge: the fuel burns too slowly. You don\u2019t get enough thrust. No hybrid has ever achieved orbit. An American company managed to get a hybrid rocket off the pad in 1984 \u2013 and then collapsed into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n Yet among hobby rocketeers, hybrids have become the engine of choice because they are simple and safe. They\u2019re less likely to blow up, hence no fireball in that vision from the day Eris crashed. Those rocketeers were an untapped pool of engineering talent, who loved space enough that they\u2019d uproot their lives to work for someone who promised a chance at dream fulfilment. Gilmour hired some of them, and they developed a new type of quick-burning fuel and special injector, and started testing rockets in the paddocks of Gilmour\u2019s parents\u2019 then farm. They worked their way up from hobby rockets to upper-atmosphere test rockets (successful) then to a nine-metre rocket (unsuccessful; cartwheeled off the pad and landed nose down) and finally to Eris (the relative success or failure of which is a matter of some debate).<\/p>\n Eris\u2019s July test-flight stumble was attributed to the failure of its hybrid engines, with the data suggesting the turbo pumps \u2013 that push oxidiser over the fuel grain \u2013 were drawing too much power and shut down. The fix is simple enough even though the root cause is not yet obvious, says Gilmour, who thinks the 17-month wait on the launch pad contributed. \u201cThis was an old clunker.\u201d<\/p>\n The take-off is the hardest part of any launch. SpaceX\u2019s first three rockets failed. Eris\u2019s 14 seconds of flight time \u2013 and with the company\u2019s guidance computers and launch infrastructure both working \u2013 mean about 50 per cent of the rocket is now flight-tested, which is why Gilmour called it a \u201cstrong result and a major step forward\u201d. In the control room on the day itself, he was ecstatic. \u201cAs soon as we left the pad,\u201d he says, \u201cthe company was saved.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone agrees. A week later, in a not-so-subtle dig, Peter Beck, the CEO of New Zealand competitor Rocket Lab, told investors, \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna hear some rubbish about just clearing the pad as a success.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite admitting to some missteps, Gilmour is keen to slate maximum blame for scheduling to the Australian Space Agency (ASA), which he castigates as a bunch of risk-allergic bureaucrats. I put this to the head of the agency, Enrico Palermo, who responds by pointing out that the schedule isn\u2019t determined solely by the regulator, but also the timely manner and nature of the information they receive from rocket companies.<\/p>\n Gilmour isn\u2019t having any of it, still clearly annoyed by the refusal to green-light his launches for months on end. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t know anything you just suspect everything,\u201d he says of the ASA. \u201cYou have a greater risk of getting hit by a meteorite than by our goddamn rocket. It was just insane.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam Gilmour with Eris, which is 23 metres from tip to tail and is made of aluminium \u2013 light, cheap, easy to work with and to mass-produce.<\/p>\n Back in 2019, a CNET journalist visited Gilmour Space, then inside a repurposed roadside cafe, with engineering staff working around old kitchen appliances. How things have changed. It\u2019s now a sprawling custom-built warehouse, paid for with about $50 million of private and taxpayer money. When I visit, most of the 230-odd employees have the week off to recover from the stress of the launch campaign, but the place still buzzes. 3D printers fabricate rocket parts out of plastic and an alloy developed for spaceflight. Machines to print circuit boards have just been installed. Oliwia Andrejko, who emigrated with her husband from Poland to work for Gilmour \u2013 one of many international transplants called by the rocket\u2019s siren song \u2013 shows me the first green-grid circuit boards, which roll off the fabricator like warm toast out of a hotel buffet\u2019s toaster. Solar cells are manufactured over here, lithium-ion batteries over there. Several technicians seem to be spit-roasting a large piece of black plastic over a fire \u2013 a process I am not allowed to know about.<\/p>\n I keep walking, and suddenly there it is \u2013 Eris. Laid out horizontally, in enormous stages, like the metallic skeleton of a blue whale. I\u2019ve written about satellites and deep-space radar dishes and missions to far-off asteroids, but there is something emotionally resonant about seeing a vessel built to punch through the atmosphere. Gilmour knows how I feel. \u201cThe ground shakes, the air hits you in the chest,\u201d he recently told a podcast. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like you\u2019re feeling the force of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Eris is 23 metres tip to tail. Gilmour chose to build it out of aluminium because it\u2019s light, cheap and easy to work with. That\u2019s a mantra at the company, too, because for Gilmour to truly succeed, there can\u2019t just be one launch. They have to achieve mass-production. Eris has to be the Model-T of rockets: you can have any colour you want so long as it reaches orbit.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m on the hook for multiple rockets per annum. I won\u2019t give you the number, it is scary, but we can definitely do it,\u201d says head of production Matthew Halstead. As a sign of this ambition, in the centre of the warehouse, ample room has been reserved next to Eris for another rocket assembly line, maybe even three more.<\/p>\n Gilmour could buy in custom-fabricated metal components for the rocket\u2019s skeleton, but says it\u2019s actually much cheaper to buy and process cheap sheets of aluminium themselves. \u201cOne day we hope to have sheets of metal come in one end,\u201d says Michelle, \u201cand the rocket go out the other.\u201d<\/p>\n Eris is almost ready for its next launch. Its silver bones will soon be painted with a special white ablative paint that will smoulder and fall away, dissipating heat as the rocket burns through the atmosphere. Early next year, hopefully, engineers will truck it out to Bowen, and point its tip to the sky.<\/p>\n Spaceflight is an extremely effective way of separating the rich from their fortunes. Richard Branson\u2019s companies blew up an orbiter, killing a pilot, and then went bankrupt. SpaceX was literally built on the ruins of Beal Aerospace, shuttered in 2000 despite a successful test-fire and the backing of a billionaire. Gilmour has spent about $5 million to self-fund Gilmour Space (\u201cI was well paid \u2013 and a really good saver\u201d), and James has invested, too. So far, the company has raised about $143 million in venture capital, plus $63.3 million in federal government grants. (They are in the midst of closing another round of funding, touted at $150 million.)<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n On New Zealand\u2019s north coast, Rocket Lab has built a thriving orbital launch business behind its Electron rocket. But the thinnest of margins separate success from failure. In 2022, Gilmour was waiting on a $12 million tax rebate, and the payment was delayed. The company only had enough to pay the next few months\u2019 expenses, so he thought he\u2019d have to lay off half his staff. Then he heard that Sam Sicilia, chief investment officer for Hostplus, one of Australia\u2019s largest superannuation funds, was on the Gold Coast. Gilmour raced over and offered Sicilia a tour of the rocket factory. The move worked, and the fund agreed to invest. \u201cI went from despair to euphoria in five hours.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilmour has few hobbies. Mostly, he builds rockets. When things are at their worst he retreats into what he can control. He was a good-enough young gymnast to dream of making the Olympics, and that\u2019s how he stays fit. He\u2019s working up to competition level again, and comes out of a session on the pommel-horse and roman rings spitting fury. \u201cI bounce the other way, and get really fiery: I will do this,\u201d he says. \u201cI say the \u2018f\u2019 word to myself a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Once \u2013 if \u2013 they get to orbit, the next thing Gilmour needs to do is make money so the company is viable. His company has two competitors that dominate the top and bottom of the market. SpaceX\u2019s $US70 million rockets can carry a weight of 22 tonnes to low Earth orbit, where 90 per cent of satellites circle. Rocket Lab\u2019s tiny Electron can carry about 300 kilograms. Eris needs to hit somewhere in the middle \u2013 and for about $US8-9 million a trip. SpaceX has a two-year backlog for satellite launches, and can\u2019t hit the range of different orbits Eris will theoretically be able to, so the opportunity is there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe market is so dysfunctional now, and the demand is so huge, all you need is a functional rocket and you will win,\u201d says Gilmour. \u201cI don\u2019t need a special sauce. I just need a rocket that works.\u201d<\/p>\n But he needs one before he runs out of money. \u201cBusinesses like this,\u201d says a space industry insider, \u201cthey tend to go under.\u201d<\/p>\n To stay operational, Gilmour Space has diversified. In June, it successfully launched a satellite (on a SpaceX rocket). They are also developing hypersonic launch vehicles which can reach speeds beyond Mach 5. The customers? Armed forces around the world at the moment are very interested in developing hypersonic missiles, which fly so fast that they are close to impossible to shoot down. The Royal Australian Air Force is trying to build its own hypersonic cruise missile. Gilmour\u2019s service will allow Defence to test out materials, propulsion and guidance systems at extreme speeds. \u201cWe are not building hypersonic missiles with Defence,\u201d Michelle tells me. The Gilmour Space mission statement is, in James\u2019s words, \u201call orbits, all planets, for the benefit of humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n Do hypersonic flight-test services for Defence meet that lofty ambition? Recall the story of the greatest rocketeer of all, Wernher von Braun, who led NASA to the moon \u2013 after cutting his teeth developing V-2 rockets for Nazi Germany. A rocket is a rocket, no matter what\u2019s on top.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n In Adam Gilmour\u2019s dreams, the countdown rolls. At zero, Eris combines solid and liquid fuels and, with a spark, ignites them. Gas presses out of the thrusters and against the Earth, and pushes the vehicle upwards, slowly at first but then faster and faster. As Eris accelerates, she pushes harder and harder against the air, and the air pushes back, as though the atmosphere, upset at being punctured, is trying to crush the rocket. Eventually the rocket will reach maximum speed and pressure \u2013 a moment known as \u201cmax q\u201d. This is the rocket\u2019s greatest test. Fail and explode. Or succeed and punch through into clear, crisp space.<\/p>\n Gilmour is fast approaching his own max q. It\u2019s been nearly a decade and more than $200 million since he pledged to launch a rocket into orbit. But spaceflight is like solving a billion little problems, one after another. Every day is painful. It\u2019s very easy, tempting even, to believe he won\u2019t make it \u2013 that Gilmour is little more than a gnat on Elon Musk\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n But the Gilmours are used to not being believed. They think part of this is Australia\u2019s cultural cringe: the belief we cannot do big things. Look at our risk-averse regulator, they say, or at all the poking-fun following their first launch.<\/p>\n Yet an absolute prerequisite of achieving the impossible is a belief that one can achieve the impossible. And you won\u2019t find more fervent believers than Adam and James Gilmour. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a religious thing,\u201d Gilmour says. James closes our chat with a raised fist: \u201cTo the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>, The Age<\/a> and Brisbane Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size It was in the middle of May that Adam Gilmour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-299967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"while](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/40868e8cf9aff3fbd212e3f0fc9ea702d648f42d.jpeg\")
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