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Q. What is the significant reason that we must overcome all hardships and move ahead in space exploration in spite of accidents? The way I view space and the way I advocate for space activities in the United States, is to argue, first, that there are practical benefits in space that for a major country in the 21st century become necessities. On the other hand, there is tremendous spiritual value in space exploration at a time when all over the world people are beginning to lose confidence in their societies and values. They're worried about too much materialism and the breakdown of traditional attitudes and living styles. Space can contribute to human spiritual needs and morale as well as to national practical benefits. In the case of practical benefits, there are commercial reasons. For example, for some integrated industrial applications like communication, space is quite important. In that practical-benefit area there's sort of an intermediate category, including weather satellites and land and ocean information. Getting environmental information both tells about immediate threats like typhoons that are coming, and also about land changes and erosion and ocean changes, which are long-range concerns, especially as part of a modern information society. To encourage and participate in a global society, a country must participate in both acquiring and sharing such information with other countries, and thus be a full member of the global information community. That's very important for Japan's future and for the world. Finally in the area of practical applications, the highest priority can become defense and political competition. This is what drove the extraordinary growth of U.S. and Soviet space activity from Sputnik in 1957 until the late 1980s. The recent difficulties with North Korea and their aggressive behavior, including firing rockets across Japan, suggest to me that Japan cannot simply lie there passively looking like a helpless rich person in that unstable geopolitical environment. It must have some of the tools necessary to at least assess its own security. And space is an important part of that function. More generally, it seems to me that these days Japan's major competitor politically and otherwise is China. The Chinese seem quite ambitious in their space program, apparently seeking domestic self-esteem and international status through impressive space endeavors, following along the path of those old U.S.-Soviet accomplishments of more than four decades ago. Japan might wisely choose to pursue its own directions in space rather than feel obligated to simply respond to Chinese initiatives. But that reasoned approach requires Japan to have a vigorous space program, building toward truly significant objectives in space, with broad implications for future possibilities. It requires focus on some major endeavors, not simply sponsoring a wide collection of individual projects that satisfy diverse domestic constituencies. Once again, JAXA through its organizational and financial consolidation, may now have the opportunity to advocate effectively for thoughtful and compelling major initiatives in space to assure to itself and the world that Japan has gone beyond simply "catching up." The importance of space leadership leads me to my final point. In English we have the expression, "man does not live by bread alone." That's true for space activities as well. There has to be a spiritual side. And for me that's the most important part. It's the sense of exhilaration and enlargement of the human spirit that comes about from space exploration directly, as just illustrated with the enormous interest in the Spirit landing on Mars. There were billions of hits on the JPL and NASA websites. Just the idea that engineers and scientists in Pasadena, who are real people just like you and me, made of flesh and blood, were controlling and reacting to and getting data back from something on distant Mars, a little red dot in the sky, and were bringing those pictures and other information to us. We didn't go there, we brought it back, that is the important thing. Such public demonstrations of space exploration have had an enormous impact on the human mind throughout the space age. It has special significance for young people, which is very important in the United States and I imagine in Japan too. The idea that there's something in the future that wasn't there before, that the future somehow can be better, or different at least, and that today's young people can participate in that future by developing the demanding skills and expertise required, can be a strong antidote to the nihilism and cultural disorientation that have accompanied the rise of consumerism. Well, Japan's young people can't dream about and participate easily in that future unless Japan has a vigorous and imaginative space program of its own. Nozomi was part of that objective, and that's why more Nozomis are essential. JAXA must go on and be more aggressive. |
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Finally when you get to human space flight, the question is, "Why do we have human space flight at all? The robots are fine." The answer is, the robots are not enough. They are "human" because we humans design, build and operate them. So they are us, but they're not quite the same as the actual experience and vulnerability of a human in space. Certainly in this century one of the major epics and popular adventures will be the journeys to determine whether or not Mars is a habitable planet. Is it a place that could provide on the longer time scale another site for humanity? I don't think the Moon can, not economically. There are no practical resources there. But Mars has carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen easily available on the surface. Those are the elements that make up you and me. One could put a greenhouse on there and heat it either by solar, or more likely by nuclear power over time, and grow food. One could make breathing oxygen and water from what we now know to be abundant ice in the soil. We could also break those water molecules up electrically and make hydrogen and oxygen for fuel. So Mars really is a place over time that offers the potential, at least, for human habitation. And it is the only place in the Solar System besides Earth where human habitation is at least a possibility. I think the big question in space exploration for the 21st Century is, "Is human habitation of Mars really a practical possibility over time?" It was a hundred years ago that the first significant human probings of the Antarctic continent took place. And then Scott and Amundsen raced to the pole. That burst of exploratory energy was ended by World War I. It didn't resume again seriously until after World War II. The outcome over time has been very important scientifically, providing crucial information on climate change for example, an issue which didn't even exist seriously when the first explorers battled the cold, icy extremes of that continent. Japan has played an important role in that scientific development. Now there is a permanent base at the South Pole, where it is dark six months a year and very cold. It's cold, not as cold as Mars, but cold. And it's maintained as a scientific base, and Earth is learning about what it takes for humans to not just survive but flourish there. I foresee that the same thing will happen on Mars by the middle of this century or the latter part. JAXA must ask itself and others "Should Japanese young people watch these developments from the sidelines, or should they feel a part of the process in which they can participate?" I think it's pretty obvious what the answer is. Therefore the Japanese government should recognize - despite these recent JAXA setbacks, and despite the fact that the human space flight program of the United States is in a mess right now - that it's in Japan's long-term interest to help evolve these programs into a more rational program with important goals, and eventually to Mars. That's part of the spiritual side.
[ Interview : January 5, 2004 ]
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