Questions for Japan’s space program.

Japan's spacecraft: unmanned, at least for now.

What next?

With the most recent launch of the space shuttle, Japan is seeing the final mission of one of their astronauts aboard an American spacecraft. America is getting out of the manned flight business, and Japan doesn’t have any capabilities in that area…yet.

Japan does have launch capabilities. Their space agency (JAXA) successfully resupplied the International Space Station on their first try, with a vehicle they devised called the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV). The HTV is designed as an unmanned cargo vehicle, and performs rendezvous and docking without human pilots.

But, Japan could revise the vehicle to carry Japanese astronauts. The question is: will they?

As in America, there are those who favor and those who oppose manned spaceflight. Cost is a factor; and so is the fact that many experiments can be done without humans in space.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will again point out: it’s not all about experiments and science. It’s about human advancement, and the human adventure. Whichever country recognizes that will take control of the high frontier.

Japan may be a player; they’ve got good engineers. But they may choose not to go for it.