Japan to change space policy, aims manned mission: report

Asia Pacific News ^ | 1.30.04 | Asia Pacific News

[ambrose]

This story was printed from channelnewsasia.com

Title	:	Japan to change space policy, aims manned mission: report
By	:
Date	:	30 January 2004 0521 hrs (SST)
URL	:	http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/68660/1/.html

TOKYO : Spurred by China's success in its first-ever manned space flight, Japan plans a drastic review of its space policy and will consider launching manned space trips as well, a report said.

The government will "consider realising a manned space flight by a Japanese astronaut at an early time", the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said in its evening edition, without indicating a timeframe.

The government's science and technology council, chaired by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is expected to agree to draw up a new policy by mid-2004, the mass-circulation daily said without citing sources.

Japan had decided to review its space policy primarily because China had succeeded in putting a man into space last October and US President George Bush announced this month a US return to the moon as early as 2015, it said.

But the daily added some government officials are cautious towards manned flight programmes as they would need to boost the space development budget, currently totalling a relatively paltry 300 billion yen (2.8 billion dollars) a year.

No immediate comment on the report was available from the science ministry.

In November Japan failed to put a pair of spy satellites into orbit, dashing hopes of using its domestically-developed H2-A rocket to become a player in the commercial satellite launch market.

- AFP

Copyright © 2003 MCN International Pte Ltd

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[ambrose]

oops... this is a dupe of this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1067833/posts

[UCANSEE2]

Better take note. Now that it looks like the US and the other coalition nations are going to reduce worldwide terrorism, other countries can spend their money where it helps.

Note: Japan to have manned missions, Israel to have manned missions (Did they say Israel???)

China already in the biz.

Either that or there is a compelling reason to get the hell off this planet!

(Perhaps there is a reason that all countries are spending money on NEAR stations)

[11B3]

Why can't NASA bring our closest allies (Japan, Israel, England) into a real multi-national space agency and get us to the moon again before 2008? If the ChiComs put a man on the moon before we do, they'll annex it.

[realpatriot71]

It the ENERGY! It turns out that what little "atmosphere" the moon has is full of this crap that can be used to make energy, and TONS of it. The best estimates of how long the world has of oil production by people who've looked into it (www.dieoff.org), and realistically speaking the world's got about 30, maybe 40, 50 tops, years of oil left.

We'd better get to the moon first!!!