Australia's First Astronaut

His portrait hangs proudly in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, honouring a distinguished career across a dizzying array of specialities: technology and strategy, defence and security, aviation and aerospace, ICT, oceanography and education. His contribution has global reach and a long list of awards and recognitions to match. Generally regarded as Australia’s first astronaut, Paul was aboard Challenger on the 13th flight of the space shuttle.

Dr Paul Scully-Power is Executive Chairman of Prime Solutions Pacific, a high-tech consulting company; Chairman of Auspace Ltd, a Canberra defence services company; Chairman of WebSafe, a Canberra Internet security company; and Chairman of SensorConnect Inc, a California ICT company. He was formerly the Chief Technology Officer of the Tenix Group, Australia’s largest defence & technology contractor. Dr Scully-Power is generally known as Australia’s first astronaut, having flown aboard Challenger on the 13th flight of the Space Shuttle.

He has extensive commercial and government experience in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and is widely recognised in the fields of technology and strategy, defence and security, aviation and aerospace, ICT, oceanography, and education. He has served as an executive or director of a number of public and private companies and advisory boards worldwide.

Dr Scully-Power is past Chairman of the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (the federal regulator), a former Chancellor of Bond University (Australia’s largest private university), and was the inaugural Chairman of the Queensland Premier’s Science and Technology Council. Prior to that he spent over twenty years in the United States where he managed and led many defence industry and high technology programs. He served with the US Navy, NASA, the Pentagon, and the White House, where he was the Head of a Government-Industry partnership for the development of advanced communications systems as part of the White House National Technology Strategy Program. He was also responsible for the funding of major programs at universities and research institutions on behalf of the U.S. government. Additionally, he held the Distinguished Chair of Environmental Acoustics, was a Research Associate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Chairman of Membership of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, served on the University & College Accreditation Board, and was President of the Fort Trumbull Federal Credit Union. Before going to America, he was the inaugural Head of the Royal Australian Navy’s Oceanographic Section, deploying to sea on 26 cruises and qualifying as a naval ship's diver.

Dr Scully-Power is considered a world expert in remote sensing: visible, infra-red, radar and acoustic and has published over ninety international scientific reports and journal articles, including the Bakerian Lecture of the Royal Society. He has been a major contributor to the US Navy’s warfare appraisal and surveillance strategies, and wrote the Navy’s Technology Plan. He is a Doctor of Science in Applied Mathematics, discovered the phenomenon of ocean spiral eddies, and is the 1995 University of Sydney’s Distinguished Graduate.

Dr Scully-Power is US Air Force qualified for full pressure suit flying, and was a flight crew instructor in the Astronaut Office, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. He was the first President of the U.N. International Commission on Space Oceanography and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Liveryman of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators, and a Freeman of the City of London.

He is involved in many business and community groups through his roles as Patron of the Australian Aviation Museum, the Royal Australian Navy Laboratory Association, and the League of Ancient Mariners; past Vice President of the Naval Warfare Officers’ Association; a member of the International Trade and Government Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce; and a Director of the Australia Youth Trust set up by the late Princess Diana. He is also a founding member of the advisory board of Environment Business Australia. Dr Scully-Power served on the Australian Trade Commission for five years, and on the Australian Institute of Company Directors for eight years. A larger than life-size oil painting of Dr Scully-Power hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

Among his awards are the Distinguished Service Medal (the highest honour awarded by the U.S. Navy), NASA Space Medal, Casey Baldwin Medallion of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, United States Presidential Letter of Commendation, US Congressional Certificate of Merit, United Nations Association Distinguished Service Award, Laureate of the Albatross (Oceanography’s ‘Nobel Prize’), Order of the Decibel (the highest award in the field of Underwater Acoustics), and Australia’s highest aviation award the Oswald Watt Gold Medal. He was appointed a Member in the Order of Australia on Australia Day 2004.