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Japan Scrapping Moon Mission
jonerik writes to mention the AP is reporting that Japan may be scrapping their upcoming moon mission. The original plan was for the "Lunar-A" probe to implant two seismic sensors on the moon, however, the project took so long that the delivery probe has fallen victim to neglect and would take too much money to repair. From the article: "The mission would have been Japan's first to the surface of the moon, and was originally scheduled for lift off in 1995. [...] JAXA's space development committee recommended canceling the Lunar-A project on Monday, and a final decision will be made later in the month, [Satoko] Kanazawa said."
The NASA moon landings weren't faked.
*please mod informative, please mod informative*
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
> Currently, only the United States, Russia and the European Union have landed probes on the moon.
Nor did ESA. SMART-1 crashed into the Moon, that's not called landing.
Although there are probably a number of factors at play here, primarily JAXA is simply just chronically underfunded. Similar to the system used for many software developers, they were given a certain amount of funding based on achieving certain checkpoints. However, for the most part they were weighted heavily toward the end of the missions. This is only speculation, but it's likely JAXA was forced to skimp on some things in order to reach their budget checkpoints. Furthermore, if one project became bogged down and was unable to recoup its expenses, it would place further financial strain on the organization as a whole.
The Slashdot Limerick
A Japanese Mars probe, originally timed to arrive with that of the NSA rovers and ESA Beagle limps through space. It ran out of fuel.
The Hayabusa asteroid probe probably landed on one and got a sample, failed on its return earth, schedued this summer. Bad computer programs and running out fuel is blamed.
Academic research in Japan is mostly on a shoestring budget, and I guess this is a result. I hope they keep on trying.
Hayabusa was not a complete failure. It came pretty close and made detailed measurements and surveys of the asteroid.
Their Nozomi Mars mission also failed after experiencing a series of problems
They've had much better luck with launching observatories into earth orbit, but nothing spectacular as far as I know.
They also contributed a yet-to-be launched laboratory module for the ISS. However, lately they've been talking about pushing forward with manned exploration on their own. There's some good reasons for doing so, but they're hardly in a position to do so at the moment. JAXA has been talking big, but they haven't got the necessary support from their nation.