Using regular industrial-rated parts is standard for CubeSats in LEO, where radiation is far less of a problem than many people seem to think. The orbit is only about 350km altitude, well below the Van Allen belts, and with a mission duration of about 6 months it's not worth using parts that are vastly more expensive. For the small variation in failure probability, it makes far more sense to put up multiple ArduSats using regular parts than to put up a single ArduSat with rad-hardened parts for the same price. The plan is that nanosatisfi will launch up to 150 ArduSats over the next 5 years, and there are bound to be failures along the way but overall the cost:failure ratio works out much better with regular industrial parts. Common consumer-grade electronics such as cameras and laptop computers has been in use on the ISS for many years. Thermal management and power management are much bigger challenges for CubeSats than the relatively minor radiation they encounter.

Not true. By "space agency" we're not talking about financing a mission to Mars, we're just talking about a central body to act as a contact / coordination point for the various initiatives already being undertaken independently by commercial, hobbyist, and educational research groups. Ideally it would be far more than that, of course, but right now Australia doesn't have *anything* in terms of a central reference body for space science. Even if it simply meant having a small federal office somewhere with some permanent staff to provide liaison services between Australian space initiatives and overseas space agencies that would be a huge step forward from where we are now - which is nowhere.