Q. JAXA has worked closely with Japanese industry. How do you hope to see that relationship evolve in the future?
Center of Tokyo imaged by DAICHI
There are two primary pillars of our cooperation with Japanese industry. First, JAXA holds many patents on technology from space development. In a sense, these patents are national assets because they were created using public funds. We would like such patents to be used by Japanese companies proactively. For example, there are many patents that can be applied to things that can benefit our daily lives, such as water purification systems, omni-directional surveillance cameras, insulating paint for the exterior walls of houses, and incinerators that can reduce dioxin emissions. I would like to encourage businesses that have no direct relationship with space to look at JAXA patents for development of new products.
In addition to the patents, JAXA also owns an enormous number of satellite images, which are widely used by the private sector, not only for maps and tourist guides but also for resource exploration, agriculture and forest analysis, and regional development, for example.
The other main pillar is to try to sell our jointly developed, world-class space technology and industry to overseas markets. Japanese space technology is among the world’s top five. Considering domestic economic conditions, I think that Japanese companies need to be more aggressive about entering overseas markets. Recently, there has been a movement to try to sell large-scale Japanese infrastructure technologies, such as nuclear power plants and the Shinkansen bullet train, to foreign countries. The space industry needs to take the same approach; if it does business only in Japan, its growth will quickly hit a ceiling. I think it needs to expand beyond Japan, by manufacturing satellites for emerging and developing countries, or for example by selling ion engines developed for HAYABUSA to space-faring nations.
Q. The national budget is currently being reviewed, but Japan has not had a national space policy for a while. What is your opinion of this situation? What are your hopes?
After HAYABUSA’s return to Earth, the media gave a lot of coverage to the contributions Japan’s aerospace manufacturers made to the mission. But the reality is that many Japanese developers and manufacturers have given up because the Japanese market is too small. I am very concerned that there may be too few engineers to support Japanese technology development in the future. Someday, the industry will possibly expand its market overseas, for example in Europe. But I would like to emphasize the importance of systematic and continuous space development within the country in order to maintain the technology and motivation of Japanese aerospace manufacturers.
Although the Basic Space Law was enacted in 2008, and the establishment of a ministry of space affairs has been discussed, unfortunately, it will still take more time before we see the implementation of concrete measures and actions. I hope the government will pave the way for further efforts on space affairs with enthusiasm and commitment, as the public consensus on this continues to grow. JAXA is fired up with our strongest passion ever.
