Several media have noted interest in the book and it’s going to be reviewed by one major media organization (thanks Dave!) While a little bit of media coverage is great, this was not our target audience. Basically the way to change perceptions is to change the input, so this means academia in the U.S. So gradually I hope our messages will filter down that far from being some sort of parochial science and technology boondoggle or vanity project to show Japan as a major economic and technological power, (which of course it is all of that as well) Japan’s space development program is a strategic hedge and recessed deterrent that has been exquisitely successful in making sure that Japan is up to speed on each major space technology development paradigm shift.
Many development programs are framed in contexts that mask their deeper roles through their sheer obviousness. For example, ORS in Japan is called SOD.
Japan developed an automatic, hypersonic space plane more than 15 years ago and successfully tested it. Unlike the U.S. This sort of technology is busily being tested by DARPA, in the shape of the HTV-2. A bomber is currently a high priority in strategic technologies the Pentagon wants to develop. But the event in Japan was largely masked by the fact that it was supposed to be a technology demonstrator for Japan’s ill-named space shuttle program. I say, well, just as much as Japan didn’t get a space shuttle, it did get its core data and demonstrate key technologies. Oh, you may have forgotten that Hyflex was launched on top of a “rocket” which U.S. planners have basically called a dead ringer for an ICBM. What other country could demonstrate ASAT technologies in terms of star struck lovers or warhead reentry technologies are presented as a wok?
So indeed we turn to last week’s launch of Michibiki, basically a Melco /CRL sponsored program that I have been monitoring for 15 years, about the time when the old STA was openly calling for Japan to have its own GPS system. There is almost no need for Japan to spend $2-3 billion on developing a fleet of GPS-augment systems. Just about everybody knows where everything is in Japan anyway in terms of structures, and highly accurate handheld positioning can be gotten for nothing as a ubiquitous service on keitai. So what pray, is the need for Japan to have 1-meter accuracy (the original proposals were for cm-level accuracy)?
What indeed, eh….