They are basically the same and it is a result of different attitudes of capital providers. In Australia, you have more conservative financial institutions and no venture capitalists -> so companies must take less risk.
Related to risk is also innovation. If you can take more risks, you are more willing to purchase product and services, that are not quite ready, but can help you move you further even as they are. If you cannot take risks, you will purchase only products and services, that have already proven their usefulness at other companies. Thus crippling the ability to innovate around you.
Australia consistently has R&D spending below the OECD average (as percent of GDP). The Australian government could easily fix this, either by increasing public sector R&D funding, or increasing tax concessions for private R&D funding, or both. But they don’t, because it isn’t a political priority.
(And doesn’t culture have a great role to play in determining what is seen as a political priority, and what isn’t?)
Australia's failures in space aren't the fault of other countries, they are the fault of Australia. Australia's National Space Program (1986-1996) failed primarily due to chronic underfunding. That's not the fault of the US. And then Australia went over 20 years without any dedicated space agency – not the fault of the US either. And now Australia finally has one, it has a puny budget of approximately AU$10 million (around US$7 million) a year. If Australia was to spend as much on the Australian Space Agency (as a percentage of GDP) as the US spends on NASA, its budget would be over $1 billion a year. But it's not. Is that the fault of the US? If Australia decided to spend $1 billion a year on its space agency, I think NASA (and the US government more broadly) would be quite pleased. Australia could make some substantial contributions to one or more NASA programs.
In the 1970s, Australia was an associate member of ELDO, one of the predecessor agencies of the European Space Agency. The ESA was happy to offer Australia a similar membership status in ESA, but Australia declined. Canada went ahead and remains a formal “cooperating state” of ESA to this day. The offer is still open - the ESA has said so publicly [1] - but Australia isn't interested in taking up the same status as Canada, primarily because it would require Australia to contribute financially to ESA projects (i.e. spend money on space, something Australia doesn't want to do). (I've heard the claim that the US pressured Australia not to become an associate ESA member, but I've never heard any actual evidence to support that claim; and did they pressure Canada not to have their current “cooperating” status?)
[1] https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/europeans-offer-space-...
I'm actually surprised you're asking this, because this phenomenon is fairly well known, but anyway. TSR2, Black Arrow and Concorde (with France of course) are a few examples from the UK, and the Avro Arrow is an example from Canada. It does require capitulation from weak or compromised leaders in the producing nation. Take France as a counter example of a country that refused to capitulate to US demands e.g. military aircraft, rockets.
Concorde was always pushing the envelope in terms of technology and economics. I think a big part of why it ultimately failed, was that improvements in the luxuriousness of business class and first class made it more attractive for many people to spend less money on getting there slower in luxury than spending more to get there quicker but in Concorde's far less luxurious conditions. Add to that the small addressable market (due to the high price point and limited number of aircraft), the post-9/11 aviation downturn, the Air France Flight 4590 accident, the very high maintenance costs, the fact that it was only ever used by two airlines (whose Concorde operations were only profitable because the British and French governments had written off the lion's share of development costs), and Concorde's ageing technology. (The British and French governments were not willing to pay for Concorde 2.0, and the airlines could never afford to pay for the 1.0 version themselves anyway.)
In the case of TSR-2, the UK government cancelled it because they believed the US F-111 was cheaper. They chose to prioritise cost over the interests of their domestic aircraft industry. That may have been a foolishly shortsighted decision, but ultimately fault for it lies with the UK not the US.
> It does require capitulation from weak or compromised leaders in the producing nation. Take France as a counter example of a country that refused to capitulate
My original point was about how differences in culture can potentially lead to differences in economic outcomes. I think differences in culture could also play a role in whether a country's leaders are "weak".
The two countries I know the most about are my own (Australia), and the US. And I definitely see a lot of differences in corporate culture (willingness to take risk, thirst for innovation, etc) between the two countries, differences which generally come out in the US's favour.
I remember Elon Musk saying that "the United States is the greatest country that's ever existed on earth". The US has lots of quite serious problems and in saying that Musk is choosing to ignore all those problems. (And at least some of the problems the US has are caused by distinctive aspects of US culture). But, look at SpaceX – probably in no other country on earth could SpaceX exist.
Certainly I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in Australia. Of course, the US has the advantage of 13 times more people. But, if you could imagine a country with the same population as the US but the same culture as Australia, I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in that hypothetical country either.
If Musk's dreams come true, SpaceX could turn out to be the most important company in human history thus far. (Of course, maybe his dreams won't come true – but I hope they do – I would love to live to see the day that humanity becomes a multi-planetary species.)