Minister Carr Meets NASA Administrator Bolden

In an event that has received surprisingly little coverage in the main stream press, Australian Space Minister Senator Carr met with NASA Administrator Bolden on the 28th June 2011.

In the media release which you can take a look at here, it highlights that they discussed:

"Australia's national space policy development, the Australian Space Research Program and NASA's involvement, future NASA missions and potential future Australian-United States collaboration."

  It goes on to say:

"The Australian Government is keen to encourage further opportunities for international collaboration with NASA and the United States regarding civil space science activities. Australia has significant niche capabilities to contribute in the international arena," Senator Carr said. 

Administrator Bolden and Senator Carr also discussed NASA's interest in future space science collaborations, including in the area of Earth observation."

This leaves me with a lot more questions than answers. What sort of collaborations are they discussing? Will this be part of the upcoming National Space Policy? If there wasn't some sort of opportunity on the horizon, what else would they be discussing?

I'm truly reading between the lines here, but would it be possible that they were discussing a potential Australian involvement on a NASA Earth Observation program?

Let me know if anyone has any ideas on this one. I am guessing we'll be hearing more on this front.