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At that time, collecting rocks from the sand beach in Michikawa had become a popular pastime among the team. The little aqueous rocks displayed a smooth stone look after they were polished by the wind, waves and sand. These rocks often decorated the desks and laboratory tables in the Roppongi Campus of IIS.
"Have a look at this one. It looks like Matisse's art work," claimed Tamiya Nomura.
Everyone held their breath, when they looked at the stone that Nomura held out. On the cream color smooth surface, there was a design like "a Martian canal, which has aesthetic inlays of irregular thin lines of sea weed or something," according to Shimomura. The boredom in between the rocket experiments was filled in such a heartwarming way.
Inside the tent at the Michikawa experiment site, there was a small blackboard hooked up and the experiment agenda and notices were written on it every day. One day, a Haiku poem was written on it and grabbed everyone's attention.
"The sky is high and my imagination is far away over the autumn sea."
The poet was Itokawa and he composed prose on everything from heaven, the earth and mankind. He inserted his hopes and dreams into his poems. "Without the cooperation of such infinity, the rocket's success could not be archived."
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There is another story worth mentioning. One afternoon, a young engineer was running along the beach at full speed. He looked very strange with some kind of square box tied on top of his head. It looked weird, as he was running at full speed with what looked like an ice you place on your forehead when you have a fever, attached to his head. This young man ran for a while, then stopped and looked aside like he was checking something. Then he started running again and repeated the maneuver, saying, "You have to chase me properly. I'm running desperately," to somebody.
When he shouted with a disappointed face, everything became clear. What he was carrying on his head was the transponder for onboard the rocket. To know the location of the rocket, this device served as a receiver and transmitter, and received electric waves sent from the ground antenna and promptly sent the replying electric waves back to the ground. Because of the "manual" tracking radar antenna, the operator had to practice using it. The only things we could see from the coast were boats. Such slow vessels could not be used for this practice session, so Itokawa ordered this young engineer to run as "fast as a rocket", instead of using a real one, and this helped with the antenna tracking rehearsal.
After his repeated dashes, this young man became so exhausted that by the time of the real rocket launch he could barely participate in the experiment, he recalls.
With surprises around every corner and our passion full, we were deeply impressed with every little event we experienced during this pioneering age of Japanese rockets.
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