Japan mulls moon base
From: TMG (TMG_at_Nowhere.org)
Date: 02/28/05
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Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 18:27:45 -0500
It might be time to start shifting some of the financial burden of
national/international defense and peacekeeping.
Monday, February 28, 2005 Posted: 10:55 AM EST (1555 GMT)
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's space agency is drawing up plans that
could include manned space flights and a manned research base on the
moon, a newspaper said on Monday.
Japan took a step towards restoring faith in its space program on
Saturday when it put a satellite in orbit, 15 months after its previous
attempt ended in humiliating failure when the rocket had to be blown up
shortly after launch.
That failure was particularly painful because it came shortly after
China successfully put a man into space -- a move that Japan said at the
time it had no plans to emulate.
The daily Mainichi Shimbun said on Monday a draft long-term plan being
drawn up by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) includes
developing a vehicle similar to the U.S. space shuttle by 2025.
Around the same time, it hopes to start constructing a research base on
the moon, the paper said.
Other plans include using satellites to send information on disasters
such as tsunami directly to mobile phones, it said.
An official at JAXA declined to comment on the possible contents of the
plan, which is expected to be finalized by March 31, the end of Japan's
fiscal year.
"However, I believe there is no change in our stance on manned space
flight," he added.
Many in the space industry say Japan is unlikely to become a major
player in commercial satellite launches but scientists argue the space
program is important for national prestige.
Satellites launched by Japan could play a valuable regional role such as
helping warn other Asian countries of tsunami, they say.
The Japanese-built H-2A rocket launched on Saturday from the tiny island
of Tanegashima, 620 miles(1,000 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo, carried
a dual-purpose navigation and meteorological satellite.
It was the seventh launch since the H-2A program started in in August
2001, with the only failure coming in November 2003.
The aborted mission resulted in the loss of two spy satellites intended
to monitor North Korea, which earlier this month announced it had
nuclear weapons and was pulling out of six-way talks aimed at ending its
nuclear ambitions.
Japan's space program came under fire in the 1990s after two
unsuccessful launches by the H-2 rocket, the predecessor of the H-2A.
Despite Saturday's success, Japan still has many hurdles to overcome,
including bringing down the cost of launches -- Saturday's cost around
9.4 billion yen ($89 million) -- and increasing trust in the launch
process as a whole.
"Desperate though it is to be a player in the space race, Japan still
has a lot of catching up to do," the Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial
on Monday.
But it said that with only one failure in seven launches of the H-2A,
Japan's success rate is 86 percent, compared to 90 percent for the
United States and 97 percent for Europe's Ariane space program, though
those figures are based on more than 100 launches each.
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