Word: rocketings
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...Western failures have boosted the competitive position of China and the Soviet Union, which have state-supported space programs. Moscow has sought for years to launch a U.S. satellite aboard a giant Proton rocket. China plans to use one of its Long March missiles next month to lift an AsiaSat communications satellite in a joint venture with Hong Kong. China charges only about half the $100 million that Western firms get for a launch...
...Japanese have a way of making big moves quietly. Only a handful of onlookers stood in the cold one evening last week to watch a slim red-and- silver rocket roar off the pad at the Kagoshima Space Center near Uchinoura, some 940 km (598 miles) southwest of Tokyo. But despite the minimal press coverage and lack of hoopla, the event was a major milestone for Japan's space program. The launch sent the unmanned Muses-A probe on its way to the moon, the first lunar mission since the Soviets' Luna 24 in 1976. Muses-A is expected...
...step in a sweeping initiative that could eventually make Japan one of the premier powers in space. Muses-A is a prelude to future unmanned missions that may land on the moon and explore the atmosphere of Venus. At the same time, Japan is building a new booster rocket that could make the country a strong competitor in the burgeoning business of launching commercial satellites into earth orbit. The Japanese have announced no plans for manned space flights, but they are considering the possibility. Already their companies have begun developing construction techniques for use in building bases on the moon...
Japan's progress is all the more impressive considering the obstacles its program has faced over the years. The U.S. and the Soviet Union originally used military-rocket technology to get a head start on scientific launches. But Japan's constitutional curbs on military activity forced its rocket scientists to start from scratch, and tight government budgets have not helped. In the current fiscal year, for example, Japan has allocated some $1.07 billion for space, about 10% of the U.S. figure. And launches are limited to only 90 days a year, half in winter and half in summer, because tuna...
...those reasons, Japan was a late bloomer in space. It did not put its first satellite into earth orbit until 1970, six months after the U.S. landed men on the moon. But Japan has come on fast by stressing efficiency and borrowing rocket technology from other nations. For example, the country's workhorse launcher, the H-1, is a modified version of the 30-year-old U.S. Delta rocket. Most striking is Japan's record of consistency: ISAS has had only two failures in 19 launches, both in the 1970s...