[RightWhale]

I own a Toyota, made in Japan. If the Japanese wish to join in the exploration and development of space to a greater extent, they sure have the expertise.

[sam_paine]

Certainly the Japanese have a better handle on quality than the Chinese. What interests me, is that the Japanese culturally are more amenable to the concept of engineering (the application of scientific principles to real world problems) than the Chinese, or even to Koreans, imho.

The Japanese and the Chinese both seem to have a "sae face" mentality, but the Chinese that I have worked with have a tendency to address a problem with a purely political solution (such as ignoring it) whereas the Japanese will do extra work in the background to figure out the problem, and then try to fit a political solution around the engineering solution that best solves the problem.

BTW, there's "automotive quality," "marine quality," and then "aerospace quality."

Take connectors as an example. Relatively compared to aerospace requirements, Lexus electrical connectors etc are essentially the same quality as Yugo connectors. The Lexus connectors may survive 300,000 miles vs. the 30,000 miles of the Yugo....but the operating environment of aerospace conditions would destruct both of them in milliseconds. Using basic engineering principles from the ground up in aerospace applications is a good thing. Using automotive experience in aerospace could get people killed.