Japan plans to go ahead with the idea of developing their own space shuttle starting in 2003. This 10-15 year project is now starting to gather steam. How will this affect the US and Russian space program?

For more info:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/01/01/japan.shuttle.ap/index.html

Next to USA, Japan is still the no.2 economy in the world and without a major military budget. It is about time for Japan to take some lead in this area. When China's economy surpasses Japan, Japan will feel inadequate.

So, Go Japan Go....I am all for it, as long as they do not find a Godzilla out there....

That's cool by me.

The Japaneese are extreamly intelligent amazing people. I'm sure that the US and Japan will learn oodles from eachother in space, just as we have in other areas. With a Japaneese space program maybe the US could get another partner in a joint plan to explore the solar system.

Not to forget - Japanese are very good at reliable hardware. Not like Koreans. I bought a Korean DVD player as a gift for Christmas. The darn thing did not work from get go.

The Japanese are making the pronouncement that they'll build and eventually operate a shuttle vehicle specifically to stimulate their aerospace industries -- to give them an identifiable goal.

The Japanese aerospace industry has been demonstrably unable to engineer a successfully operable medium-heavy booster rocket. Before they can successfully field a shuttle, necessarily a light-weight one, they first will have to master the requisit heavy-lift rocket technologies.

The Japanese government, by making the public pronouncement they'll loft a shuttle in 10 to 15 years, is making a public, economy-driving challenge -- necessarily an aero-space industry face-saving challenge -- to their aerospace industry: achieve for the nation just such a thing so as we can be in the future technologically competitive with the US, Russia, Europe and China.

Our rocket nozzles are made from Japanese carbon fiber. So they have the stuff. All they need to do is pay a few million to Hercules to get the know-how. The rocket technology is really simple but more of an art than science.

One of these days, they will catch on....

I do hope their pilots were not trained in the Divine Wind (Kamikaze) School of Aeronautics!! :rolleyes: