SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

NASA Proposed Sending Japanese Astronauts to the Moon [futurism.com]

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine secretly proposed using US rockets to send Japanese astronauts to the Moon, Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reports, citing "multiple sources" familiar with the talks.

According to the paper, Bridenstine made the proposal during an unofficial September 2019 visit in which he met with space industry leaders, including the head of the Japanese government's Space Policy Committee. Bridenstine reportedly encouraged attendees to consider a future in which Japanese astronauts joined Americans on the lunar surface.

[EXTENDED COPY]

US and Japan in talks to boost space ties, send Japanese astronauts to moon in 2020s [mainichi.jp]

If this were to be realized, it would be Japan's first moon landing, and it could possibly make the country only the second in history, after the U.S., to put a person on the astronomical body. The U.S. believes the moon is set to become a strategic point in the near future both in terms of economics and security, and its moves to strengthen ties with Japan are apparently part of an aim to check China's rise to interstellar prominence.

[...] At the end of May 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received U.S. President Donald Trump as a state guest, and declared that Japan was reviewing possible participation in Washington's program.

Bridenstine then held an unofficial meeting on Sept. 24, 2019, in Tokyo with figures including Yoshiyuki Kasai, head of the government's Space Policy Committee and honorary chairman at the Central Japan Railway Co., Takafumi Matsui, deputy head of the same committee as well as the director at the Chiba Institute of Technology's Planetary Exploration Research Center and a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, and Takehiko Matsuo, head of the National Space Policy Secretariat among others.

At the meeting, Bridenstine is reported to have petitioned the attendees to carry out a forward-thinking assessment with a vision of having Japanese astronauts stand alongside American ones on the moon.

Related: Japan Planning to Put a Man on the Moon Around 2030 [soylentnews.org]
India and Japan to Collaborate on Lunar Lander and Sample Return Mission [soylentnews.org]
NASA Orders 10 SLS Rockets; Return to the Moon Likely Delayed to 2028 [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission