The great actress Audrey Hepburn once said that "everything I have learned, I have learned from films".

That is fine for a Roman holiday but is a bit limiting when it comes to matters of science and space exploration.

Take, for example, the hit 2000 Australian film The Dish.

Set at the Parkes Observatory in a New South Wales sheep paddock, The Dish served up a fine story of Australia's forgotten role in beaming to the world live pictures of the Moon landing in July 1969.

There is a little artistic licence in the film's version of events, but the problem with The Dish, according to the outgoing US ambassador to Australia, John Berry, is that for many people, it is all they have learned.

John Berry calls the Australia–US space relationship "powerful current history". ( Supplied: U.S. Embassy in Canberra )

"I loved the movie, and almost every Australian has seen The Dish," Mr Berry said.

"But you tend to think of your relationship with us in space as being back in ancient history.

"When you hear Australians talk about The Dish, you say 'yeah, you know what's more interesting? Look what happened in space in the last three years!'" Mr Berry said.

"It is a powerful current history, it's not ancient history"

Tidbinbilla the centre of today's relationship

Much, if not all, of what Mr Berry calls the "powerful current history" of the US–Australian space relationship centres on Tidbinbilla.

Like Parkes, Tidbinbilla too sits near an unusual use for a sheep paddock, the national capital, Canberra.

Tidbinbilla's director Dr Ed Kruzins says there's a crucial difference between his facility and Parkes: Parkes can only listen to deep space, Tidbinbilla can do that and it can answer back.

A dish at the Tidbinbilla space communications station, near Canberra. ( Supplied: Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex )

"It's fundamental. Parkes is a telescope, we are a communications station," Dr Kruzins said.

"So when we are picking up signals from spacecraft from the moon or Mars or whatever, we can also send commands to those assets, those spacecraft as well."

Dr Kruzins says that makes Tidbinbilla especially valuable to NASA, because along with similar facilities in Spain and the Mojave desert, it gives the space agency the capability of talking to any spacecraft anywhere in the solar system at anytime.

John Berry recently told an Adelaide breakfast meeting just what that means in practical terms - starting with the Mars Rover.

Tidbinbilla played a crucial role in the Mars Rover project. ( Supplied: Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex )

"How did we know it had safely landed on Mars?" Mr Berry asked his audience, before providing the answer.

"It was a phone call from Tidbinbilla.

"And those amazing photos shot back from Pluto — all through Tidbinbilla."

Mr Berry said when Juno went into orbit around Jupiter, it was maybe the most complicated engineering feat accomplished by humans ever.

"When you are dealing with a planet the size of Jupiter, the levels of gravity and the mathematical formulas and the physics you rely upon are different."

All of that was done through Tidbinbilla.

It is why NASA has just spent $120 million upgrading the facility — buying two new 34-metre diameter antennae.

"It is the most cutting-edge NASA deep space communication link on the planet," John Berry said.

Artist's impression of the Juno spaceprobe in front of the planet Jupiter. ( NASA )

That the US ambassador and the Australian space station director are space geeks isn't really a surprise.

Both of them are of the Apollo 11 generation that sat, as children, in front of the television, mesmerised by the flickering images from the Moon.

But it's what's coming next that really stirs their passions: a human expedition to Mars.

"When we go to Mars — not if but when — it will be with you," Mr Berry said.

"All of the communications with Mars will be run through Tidbinbilla."

"[Mining] moves a lot of rocks from West Australia to China — we cheerlead that — but we also want you to be proud that you will be moving rocks with us on Mars. It's a lot more difficult."

For the people at Tidbinbilla, it will be a career highlight.

"I can't tell you how exciting that's going to be," Dr Kruzins said.

"Sending a crew to Mars and carrying the signal though Tidbinbilla to ensure their safety and their mission goes well, that will happen. I'm not sure when, but it will certainly be probably in our lifetimes."

Perhaps someone right now is working out how on earth to top the line, "that's one giant leap for mankind"?

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