Abstract
A bird’s eye view of Japan’s space history since World War II reveals the gradual and difficult emergence of the country as a major space power that, with US assistance—but also to bypass US restrictions on the transfer of sensitive technology—fruitfully channeled its quest for independence into a robust national program that enabled it to collaborate successfully with its erstwhile mentor and other partners.1 The United States, through NASA and private industrial corporations, supported Japan’s fledgling program early on, but deep internal divisions in the country made it difficult to build a durable arrangement. What little cooperation existed between Japan and NASA during the early 1960s was limited to small space science experiments using sounding rockets and data collection from ground stations. A 1969 agreement to provide launcher technology to Japan, strongly promoted by the State Department, was a major stimulus to the ongoing rationalization of a national space program, though this came too late for Japan to participate actively in the post-Apollo program. In fact NASA’s relations with Japan began to achieve significance only during the late 1970s and grew extensively in the later years to include a variety of cooperative space projects that benefited both countries, including human space flight and participation in the International Space Station.2
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Paul F. Langer, The Japanese Space Program: Political and Social Implications (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp., 1965), 1.
John K. Emmerson and Edwin O. Reischauer, Arms, Yen and Power: The Japanese Dilemma (New York: Dunellen, 1971), 321.
Ashi Shinbun, March 21, 1967, in Yasushi Sato, “A Contested Gift of Power: American Assistance to Japan’s Space Launch Vehicle Technology, 1965–1975,” Historia Scientarum 11:2 (November 2001), 180. It should be noted that ISS later came to play a major role in international collaboration. It was reorganized in 1981 into the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). Since the early 1980s ISAS has been involved in many collaborative international projects involving the exchange of data, scientists, and occasionally instruments on spacecraft. Some of the successful cooperative programs include the 1986 encounter with Comet Halley (John M. Logsdon, “Missing Halley’s Comet: The Politics of Big Science,” Isis 80:2 (June 1989), 254–280, and the Japanese Solar-A mission launched in August 1991). A US-supplied soft X-ray telescope was one of its two major instruments. ISAS was also part of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program.
John M. Logdson, “U.S.-Japanese Space Relations at a Crossroads,” Science 255 (January 17, 1992), 294–300, at 294, 297.
Takemi Chiku, “Japanese Space Policy in the Changing World,” MS thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992.
Memorandum J. Owen Zunhellen, Jr (Consular, American Embassy, Tokyo) to The Department of State, November 27, 1964, “Japanese Request for Assistance in Satellite Project,” General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, Box 3141, Central foreign policy files, 1964–1966, folder SP—Space and Astronautics, NARA. The US ambassador to Tokyo from 1961 to 1966, Edwin Reischauer, was fine-tuned to Japanese cultural sensitivities. His best-known book The Japanese became a bible for understanding Japan during the early 1960s and was coveted by East Asian policymakers; see Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977).
At the beginning of 2001, the merger of Science and Technology Agency (STA) with Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (MoE) created a very large ministry (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology or MEXT) in charge of two principle space agencies, the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS). The two were merged to create a single agency for aerospace JAXA. For more on the merging and emerging policy aspects, see Kazuto Suzuki, “Administrative Reforms and the Policy Logics of Japanese Space Policy,” Space Policy 21:1 (2005), 11–19; “A Brand New Space Policy or Just Papering over a Political Glitch? Japan’s New Space Law in the Making,” Space Policy 24:4 (2008), 171–174; “Transforming Japan’s Space Policy-Making,” Space Policy 23:2 (2007), 73–80. For more information on JAXA organization, see http://www.jaxa.jp/about/org/pdf/org_e.pdf (accessed September 22, 2009).
Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
For more details about the technical aspects of the Japanese contribution to the Space Station, see K. Ida, “The Japanese Experiment Module for Space Station Freedom,” Acta Astronautica 28 (1992), 43–47. For policy aspects, see
Shigeo Kobayashi, “Overview of Japanese Policy on Space Station,” Acta Astronautica 14 (1986), 11–18.
Christian Brünner and Alexander Soucek, “Regulating Iss—an Interdisciplinary Essay,” Acta Astronautica 60:4–7, 594–598;
Lynn F. H. Cline and Graham Gibbs, “Re-Negotiation of the International Space Station Agreements 1993–1997,” Acta Astronautica 53:11 (2003), 917–925;
Lawrence J. DeLucas, “International Space Station,” Acta Astronautica 38: 4–8, 613–619;
Yoshiya Fukuda, Youko Tanaka, Yoshiaki Iwata, Tomohiro Kusunose, Yuta Kitagawa, and Kazumi Koide, “Trial Production of Iss/Jem Glossary of Terms,” Acta Astronautica 50:2 (2002), 131–134;
Shigeo Kobayashi, “Overview of Japanese Policy on Space Station,” Acta Astronautica 14 (1986), 11–18;
John M. Logsdon, “International Cooperation in the Space Station Programme: Assessing the Experience to Date,” Space Policy 7:11 (1991), 35–45; “International Involvement in the US Space Station Program,” Space Policy 1:1 (1985), 12–25;
Y. Morishita, N. Saito, and M. Saito, “Jem Present Project Status,” Acta Astronautica 15:99 (1987), 615–620;
M. Saito, K. Higuchi, and K. Shiraki, “Japanese Experiment Module (Jem) Preliminary Design Status,” Acta Astronautica 16 (1987), 47–53.
Carl E. Behrens, The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service Report for Congress 7–5700, March 18, 2009).
John M. Logsdon, Together in Orbit: The Origins of International Participation in the Space Station, NASA History Division, Office of Policy and Plans, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, Monographs in Aerospace History #11 November 1998, 3. Perhaps because of its concerns with a rather unstable domestic space program, SAC did not focus on post-Apollo participation. A memo from Tokyo reported that “[w]hen queried recently by embassy officers about how their long range launcher plans would be impacted by an operation space shuttle about 1980, we were informed that this is what the post Apollo subcommittee of SAC was studying. Although we are convinced the Japanese are not yet up to such sophisticated participation,” the memo contiued, “we should continue to count them in on our international post-Apollo affairs, because of our overall interest in promoting their program for peaceful applications in space.” See Memo to Department of State from American Embassy Tokyo, Japanese Space Program: State of the Art. February 9, 1973, Signed by Ingersoll, Logsdon , Learning from the Leader, 63.
Brian Harvey, The Japanese and Indian Space Programs: Two Roads into Space (London: Springer 2000), 89.
“It is very certain that the ISS would bring about few meaningful results if they stick to the traditional scientific and experimental projects. It is recommended that Japan should stop its activities on th ISS project immediately. A quick and silent retreat is the best choice for Japan to avoid wasting money which could be better used on other priorities.” Minoru Suzuki, “Alternative International Cooperation in Space Development for Japan—Need for more Cost-Effective Space Applications Projects,” Acta Astronautica 58 (2006), 430–437.
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© 2013 John Krige, Angelina Long Callahan, and Ashok Maharaj
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Krige, J., Callahan, A.L., Maharaj, A. (2013). An Overview of NASA-Japan Relations from Pencil Rockets to the International Space Station. In: NASA in the World. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340931_9
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