Japan's 20-Year Plan for Space

rwven writes "Japan has just released information on their new space plan which will take them through the year 2025. Included in their plan are robots and nanotechnology for moon surveys as well as an eventual hydrogen powered mach-5 capable plane, a mach-2 capable passenger airliner and a manned mission to the moon. They will consider missions to mars and other planets after 2025. Space.com is also carrying this story."

Comments

Nanotech?

[0kComputer]

Over the next decade, JAXA's plan calls for scientists to develop robots and nanotechnology for surveys of the moon

I thought Nanotech was still in its infancy. What are they going to do, dump a bunch of buckyballs in a crater?

Re:Nanotech?

[nacturation]

"Over the next decade... develop nanotechnology..."

I thought Nanotech was still in its infancy.

Right, which is why they're developing it. In ten years, a human infant is no longer an infant. Of course, it remains to be seen whether nanotech can sustain a similar level of growth.

20 years!?

[Reignking]

This is one thing that I love about Japanese culture -- the ability to plan long-term. Their companies will develop 5-year plans while here in the US, we're preoccupied with every 3 months...

Why Repeat Our Mistakes?

[rewinn]

Why should Asian space efforts go for "manned" space flights?

I love Star Trek as much as anybody but the human body is a very difficult payload to sustain. If Japan is going to do serious planetary exploration (...and I wish them well at this...) then the first step should be to define goals and discard things with a low payoff

Apart from publicity stunts and tourism (... which should be self-funding ...), what goals are served by putting humans on the moon or in cislunar space?

Robots can explore far more cheaply than humans, so for any particular amount of money, we can do more exploration with robots than with humans.

The idea that humans can make on-site decisions better than robots can is simply an artifact of time-scale. That is, while there is some necessary time-lag between a robot noticing a funny rock on Mars or Titan, reporting back to Mission Control on Earth, and then acting on directions ... so what? The robot is patient, doesn't sleep, and if properly powered doesn't have to worry about food supplies.

Like I said, I love Star Trek but until we get really, really serious advances in technology, lunar and cislunar exploration is more sensibly done with robots.

But I'd be interested in contrary views.

Re:Why Repeat Our Mistakes?

[MagPulse]

"We choose to go to the moon... Not because it is easy, but because it is hard."
-JFK, 1962

In other words, it's inspiring. If not for the moon landing, a generation of scientists and engineers would've become something else, and our civilization would be the worse for it.

The reason we're seeing independent human spaceflight and governments starting to talk about ambitious space programs again is that those people have grown up and are wondering what happened to their dreams. If we get humans out to the moon and Mars in the next few decades, we will fulfill some of those dreams and give new ones to our children.

Re:Why Repeat Our Mistakes?

[ArsonSmith]

Your ideal of a quest for knowledge is noble, but for many there is also that quest for experience. Just knowing what is on Mars is much different than actually being on Mars.

Millions of tourists travel yearly to well documented locations. Would their $5,000 vacation to tour Italy be better spent just reading some books and looking at the pictures. I mean then you don't have to worry about lost luggage, weather, being robbed, getting lost etc...

I know most geeks don't really understand but there is more to life than knowledge.

Two words

[Auckerman]

National prestige. That's why. Not all money spent needs to be justified on a quantifiable physical or economic asset. Somethings just can't be graphed on paper. In the end, the feeling people get seeing their citizens on another planet can arguable have more of an impact on that society than spending the same resources on robot missions.

People are allowed to be people, you know. Naturally curious and sometimes doing dangerous and expensive things that have no obvious economic interest.

Re:Two words

[Auckerman]

"there are far bigger problems we need to resolve on earth, such as oil dependency. if these countries dumped this money into a "alternative fuel race" instead of a space race, we would have more expendable income because we would be free from the harness of oil. lets worry about this planet first before we start wasting tax money again."

No problem is two dimensional. In the real world, society is intertwined, you change one part of society, you can and usually will change it all. It's in part reflected in the law of unintended consequences. It is unreasonable to look at the worlds problems from a purely utilitarian point of view. It doesn't reflect the fact that yes we are humans and as such there are no simple answers.

This kind of reasoning is the same kind of reasoning that leads to people cutting funding for theoretical scientific work because there is no practical use for it, as you clearly are suggesting. How to use knowledge typically is not obvious when it is discovered.

I suggest you examine the possibility that people can tackle multiple problems at the same time. It is also worth considering that attacking problems from a two dimension point of view will end up causing new problems and is not the most efficient way of running a human society.

Re:Wow.

[NanoGator]

"I've had flying cars in my 20 year plan for about 50 years. I think TIME Magazine and National Geographic have as well. So, we'll see this Japanese stuff in 2057 is what they're saying, right?"

Uh. Heh. The problem with flying cars isn't so much the technology, it's the pilots. Higher class people can afford their own planes, but they're not exactly selling like hotcakes. Why? Because it takes a lot of hours to get your pilot's license. In order to make flying cars practical for mass-audiences (like they promise in PopSci), cars have to basically fly on their own. That sort of automation isn't all that practical today. GPS is helping, though...

For long round trip transmission you are right

[aepervius]

But for exploring the moon, less than 2 light second away, frankly a remote controlled robot is far more than enough, and all decision making are on earth, without having to take tons of water, food, meatbags, air, and protection against radiation or whatnot. And that was I think the point of the poster. He was not in any respect speaking of implementing any decision making into a robot.

Because we CAN.

[solios]

If we're ever going to get off this frigging rock, we need man-rated vehicles, we need efficient launch solutions, we need fast turnaround and we need sustainable habitats.

NASA has one man rated vehicle that is grossly expensive to launch, has a turnaround that is at best seasonal, and is currently used to service a barely sustainable habitat that is essentially a badly under-crewed garbage barge orbiting too low to avoid reentry without constant readjustment.

NASA, assuming they have ANY interest in the future of manned spaceflight, just isn't getting the job done. Competition is good. It took getting our ass handed to us by the Russians with Sputnik, etc. for us to even start giving a shit about space- if China or Japan puts a man on the moon, you can bet we'll be busting ass to beat them to mars.

500 years ago you probably would have been insisting on a land route to china, since it's Safe And Proven and Doesn't Risk Equipment Or Lives, etc, etc.