Stephane Israel, chief executive of European company Arianespace, said helping tourist operations like Virgin Galactic should not be a priority for governments given the space race now under way.

China triggered that race and Mr Israel said Australia should take part by providing services such as training astronauts.

"If I had a dream it would be more about using space to deliver global connections to humanity than a few seconds of space tourism," he said.

"I prefer space when it benefits the most amount of people and I don't think sub-orbital launches will ... be useful for many people.

"What I like about satellites is that they're useful for thousands and millions of people and I think it's more value for money."

Arianespace is the European government-backed commercial space company that sent the robot comet-lander Philae on its way. In September it launched the Optus-10 satellite and in 2015 it will place NBN Co's two birds high above the earth.

Mr Israel visited Australia as part of the French presidential delegation and spoke exclusively with Fairfax Media. He said recent accidents in the space industry, including the dramatic explosion of an Antares rocket and the deadly crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, were tragedies but would not hurt his company or the industry.

Mr Israel expressed his commiserations for those involved in the Virgin Galactic incident.

But he also said government support and funding should be kept for space programs that focused on helping as many people as possible rather than wealthy space tourists on services like Virgin Galactic.

Arianespace runs one of the most successful space cargo services in the world and its Ariane 5 rocket has had 62 successful launches in a row with premium prices to match.

Mr Israel said efforts to explore the depths of space were much more understandable and that China's race to put a man on the moon had triggered a new space race similar to the one between the United States and the Soviet Union.

"You also see India has delivered very successfully a mission to Mars ... and China is going full speed in the space race."

"Man likes to make some conquests and we've been in a position for humanity to go to the moon so I can understand the dream to go to Mars."

Australia has long been touted as a potential launch site with special attention on Woomera Test Range in South Australia. Arianespace's predecessor attempted to launch rockets from the site with little success.

But Mr Israel said Australia's chance to be a space power had passed and it would be better to send astronauts abroad for training instead.

Andrew Thomas and Paul Scully-Power are the only Australians who have been in space and both are naturalised Americans who worked at NASA.

"We're already in a world where there are a lot of launchers and we could be, in 10 years' time, in a world where we have an over-capacity of launchers," Mr Israel said.

"So I'm not sure it's the best investment for each nation, even a big country as important as Australia ... and I'm not sure we need each country building its own satellites.

"But in the context of co-operation I think Australia could do a lot regarding space."