JAXA Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

When we speak about the search for life in space, we always look at it as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence; in other words, the search for aliens. Of course, I do want to meet aliens.
There are two interpretations of the Japanese term chiteki-seimei-tansaku : "search for intelligent life" and "intelligent search for life." Searching for intelligent life is one thing, and searching for life in an intelligent way is quite another. The point is that we have ignored the fact that the search for life is itself an intelligent activity.
I would like to suggest that we shouldn't be obsessed with the word "intelligent." In other words, we should be released from its influences, since it is perhaps the word itself that acts as the blue filter that Astronaut Mukai mentioned in her lecture.

Geoscience, which is my specialty, is a field that studies the evolution of planets - their physical history. I love history. History is the study of the particulars of the development of a specific subject. All the life sciences are connected through geoscience and historical science, as both are concerned with the evolution of human beings.

Understanding our planet means studying how life began, evolved and survived here on Earth. Astronomical observations have enabled us to understand more and more about outer space, so that we can study the universality of the planetary system and the uniqueness of Earth. In this context, if we understand the particularities of Earth properly, we can come to more general conclusions about other planets.

What I would like to do is to understand the particularities of Earth as deeply as possible, and to look at Earth from a more universal point of view, integrating information and knowledge from astronomers.

Technological advances have allowed us to send robots deep into space and expand our world. Does that mean human space travel will follow anytime soon? No. Right now, manned flight is not developing nearly as rapidly as information technology. What we do now is select our best people and send them into space, but, unlike with robots, their individual capabilities don't increase every year. The great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton probably demonstrated greater overall capability as an explorer, I think, than any current astronaut. Cost dictates that, for the time being, it is robots that will go anywhere interesting in space. Human beings will remain users who employ robots as information-gathering tools and synthesize the findings.

The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle were conceived in the 1970s, reflecting the untested hopes and dreams of visionaries in the 1950s and 1960s. Therefore, I feel that Russia, Japan, the United States, China and others need to come up with new concepts of human space flight more appropriate to the information age, and much cheaper and more efficient than previously possible. Otherwise, continuing space research involving human flight will simply become unaffordable.

We have sent rovers to study Mars. If we had tried to do this without robots, we would never, ever have been able to do it. It's fantastic that we can send robots and sensors into space and get images back. I think these images inspire our imagination and promote our research.

Earth is only one part of the space environment. The uniqueness of its environment has enabled distinctive higher life forms to evolve. Sometimes, to understand your immediate surroundings, you need to travel far away and look back. This is why human beings leave their own environment for space.

If you look through a blue filter, anything that's blue becomes hidden - you cannot see it. To see a blue object, you have to remove the filter. Gravity is that kind of filter: it's all around us, so it's hard to imagine what life would be like without it. There are, however, some people who can see beyond the blue filter, using their great imaginative power.

We are surrounded with blue birds, but we can't find them. Why? Perhaps we don't realize how wonderful our environment is until we lose it. In short, we cannot appreciate life nurtured by the unique environment of Earth until we go outside it.

Space and life are literally the frontier of knowledge, and they inspire us to seek further discoveries. But there are some people, such as politicians, who think of nothing but practicality. Practicality is a technological issue, and science means the pursuit of new knowledge. The application of basic science to technology is secondary. Knowledge and practicality are different ideas, and knowledge is very valuable in itself.