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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."
It is because of the lack of technology exports and because the Japanese government is not the same as Japanese industry. Japan is a great place for perfecting technologies, but they suck at inventing things (if you don't believe me compare the total number of Japanese Nobel Prizes to what the US got in just physics or chemistry from 1990-2006). And their government is generally inept (but in a good way since it doesn't restrict industry). If they wanted to see a Japanese space program take off they would start by modifying a couple of US designs and contracting it all out to Japanese industry (instead of using their oppressive government bureaucracy).
Does anyone else find it strange that with all the public support moon missions received in the past, that nobody has gone to the moon in so long? The guy who wrote the book that Oliver Stone's JFK was largely based on had some ideas about this... Only book I've ever read like this that used appropriate qualifiers and didn't just present evidence that argued for UFO's (i.e. he presented information which made it clear that many witnesses were lying or unreliable. That still left a whole lot of reliable ones though!)