His company, Gilmour Space Technologies, is on track to have its first launch from Bowen later this year and admits the goal of manned space flight within a decade was ambitious.

But he isn’t short of ambition and said he would definitely like to be on one of those future flights.

“It is ambitious and it’s going to need Government support, but we have already got a senior executive in our company who was the production manager for the SpaceX and Crew Dragon vehicles. And we have got people from other American space flight companies, senior engineers, who are interested in coming to work for us as well,” Gilmour told In Queensland.

“So we are starting with a small team, but I am not going to do this without Government support. It’s too much money.

“We are doing everything a lot cheaper than everybody else, but I still think it would be at least $300 million.”

He said the company already has preliminary designs for a launch vehicle and the crew vehicle to carry out manned space flights.

“We have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to make complicated space vehicles now and we have almost finished the first one and we have experienced people from other space companies who have already done it. That gives us a pretty good idea of what it needs, how long it will take and what the ramp-up looks like,” he said.

“I look a the solar system the same way England, France and Portugal, Spain looked at the rest of the world. It’s real estate.

“I have absolutely no doubt people of the future will land on the moon, asteroids and Mars and try to claim ownership of it. I think that is closer than people realise and I think it’s important for Australia to have the capability to do the same thing.

“The best example I can give is Antarctica. No one really lives there but everyone has claimed a piece of it for research or whatever and the moon and asteroids are no different.

“We are going to need the capacity to go into the solar system in the next 50 to hundred years. Politicians don’t look that far ahead but I certainly do.”

He said the Federal Government’s Space Agency had previously announced it was looking at human space flight and the Morrison Government were interested in the possibility.

“But I think I have some convincing to do with the new Government, but we will see,” he said.

“I am going to go on one (space flight). There are a lot of people in the company who want to go into space.

“I definitely have always wanted to go to space and there was a point in time when I thought the least risky way was to build by own damned vehicle, but you can’t just have one goal in life you have to have multiple and if you get one, you’re good, if you get two you’re unreal and if you get three you’re fantastic.

“Going into low earth orbit is our first major goal and it builds from there. I’ll be pretty happy when we go into low earth orbit with a satellite and just go from there.

While the progression to the company’s launch later this year was going well he said there was a probability of failure.