Professor Fred Watson

We think this decision really sets Australian astronomy back by 50 years.

I think one of the immediate consequences will be we'll start to lose our brightest and best PhD students, postdoctoral scientists and our undergraduates.

We'll start to lose them in the field of astronomy.

to countries that are participants in the European Southern Observatory, the 16 member countries, they will flee to Europe so that they will have access as of right to these facilities, whereas we won't in Australia.

It cost $12.92 million per year.

So a total investment over 10 years of about $130 million.

And so the deal was done, a kind of try before you buy deal, by the European Southern Observatory.

Unique, it hadn't happened with any of the other member states.

It was specially designed for Australia because the European Southern Observatory wants the expertise that we can provide.

And it meant that we had access over 10 years, the 10-year strategic partnership, 2017 to 2027, to some of the facilities of the European Southern Observatory.

And in particular, the four 8.2-metre telescopes of what's called the VLT, the Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, that's the flagship of the European Southern Observatory.

It did not allow us...

to make contributions to the building of the ELT, the Extremely Large Telescope with its 39-metre diameter mirror, but had access to the VLT and also the ability to bid for instruments.

The bottom line is the strategic partnership not only has it made

these world-class telescopes accessible by Australian astronomers, but also the spin-offs that come from that, the fact that we can engage at a very high level with the very best engineers in the world and provide our own, probably at the level of about 100 people who've been involved on the engineering side of this, and that's a not insignificant number.

some specialists in the economics of membership of an organisation like the European Southern Observatory.

Some people say you get back five to ten times as much as you invest because of the benefit not just of the hardware which involves our engineers building things for their telescopes belonging to this organisation, but in the value of ideas.

Ideas that then spin into everyday life

The ideas that finally wind up in your mobile phone, at least three of the things in here started off with astronomy.

There are two things really, and they're both interconnected.