Japanese Astronauts To Land On Moon As Part of New NASA Partnership (spacenews.com) 17
Under a new agreement between the U.S. and Japan, the first non-American on the Moon as part of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign will be a Japanese astronaut. SpaceNews reports: At an event in Washington, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Masahito Moriyama signed an agreement regarding an additional Japanese contribution to Artemis, a pressurized lunar rover called Lunar Cruiser. NASA will deliver the rover to the moon, which the agencies said should take place ahead of the Artemis 7 mission scheduled for no earlier than 2031. NASA will also provide two seats on future Artemis lunar landing missions to astronauts from the Japanese space agency JAXA, the first agency other than NASA to secure spots on landing missions.
The Japanese rover will support extended expeditions from Artemis landing sites that are beyond the range of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle that three American companies are developing for NASA under contracts announced April 3. The rover is designed to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days, with an overall lifetime of 10 years. The announcement, though, offered no details about when the Japanese astronauts would fly to the moon. "It depends," Nelson said at an April 10 briefing when asked about schedules, noting that the two countries "announced a shared goal for a Japanese national to land on the moon on a future NASA mission assuming benchmarks are achieved."
"No mission has been currently assigned to a Japanese astronaut," added Lara Kearney, manager of NASA's extravehicular activity and human surface mobility program, at the briefing. The implementing agreement (PDF) said several factors will go into crew assignments, including progress on the pressurized rover, or PR: "The timing of the flight opportunities will be determined by NASA in line with existing flight manifesting and crew assignment processes and will take into account program progress and constraints, MEXT's request for the earliest possible assignment of the Japanese astronauts to lunar surface missions, and major PR milestones such as when the PR is first deployed on the lunar surface." The assumption among many in the industry, though, is that at least one of the astronauts will fly before the rover is delivered, and possibly as soon as the Artemis 4 mission, the second crewed landing, in the late 2020s.
The Japanese rover will support extended expeditions from Artemis landing sites that are beyond the range of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle that three American companies are developing for NASA under contracts announced April 3. The rover is designed to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days, with an overall lifetime of 10 years. The announcement, though, offered no details about when the Japanese astronauts would fly to the moon. "It depends," Nelson said at an April 10 briefing when asked about schedules, noting that the two countries "announced a shared goal for a Japanese national to land on the moon on a future NASA mission assuming benchmarks are achieved."
"No mission has been currently assigned to a Japanese astronaut," added Lara Kearney, manager of NASA's extravehicular activity and human surface mobility program, at the briefing. The implementing agreement (PDF) said several factors will go into crew assignments, including progress on the pressurized rover, or PR: "The timing of the flight opportunities will be determined by NASA in line with existing flight manifesting and crew assignment processes and will take into account program progress and constraints, MEXT's request for the earliest possible assignment of the Japanese astronauts to lunar surface missions, and major PR milestones such as when the PR is first deployed on the lunar surface." The assumption among many in the industry, though, is that at least one of the astronauts will fly before the rover is delivered, and possibly as soon as the Artemis 4 mission, the second crewed landing, in the late 2020s.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The last time any astronaut died during a mission was 2003, Columbia. "Outside our atmosphere" conveniently ignores the 280 people from 23 countries who've been to the ISS. How many years would you like to wait before resuming missions? 100? 1000?
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Why don't we send the illegal border jumpers there?
Why don't we send all the owners of Texas companies who keep hiring all those illegal border jumpers since Abbott isn't doing anything about it.
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't we send the illegal border jumpers there?
Why don't we send all the owners of Texas companies who keep hiring all those illegal border jumpers since Abbott isn't doing anything about it.
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Citations please ... or else this is just political BS
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Has Abbott made one announcement about any employer being fined for jailed for hiring illegals? One would think for as much talking he does he'd put people's businesses and faces on the news to say, "This will happne to you if you hire illegals." And yet . . . silence.
This is from 2016 [texastribune.org] and shows how Texas doesn't go after businesses who employ illegals.
This is from 2019 [wfaa.com] and shows it took a class-action lawsuit filed by the illegals themselves, not the state, to get overtime paid they were cheated out of.
Obligatory (Score:2)
I know - I'm going to hell.
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I'm looking forward to seeing the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing in action at last.
People keep talking about this show, but I found the characters nothing but a bunch of whiners. Even Duo. The only good part is when Heero rips up the birthday party invitation and says, "I'll kill you." [youtube.com]
Also, Heero is the worst gundam pilot ever. You can't change my mind.
Space Auto Industry (Score:2)
> The Japanese rover will support extended expeditions from Artemis landing sites that are beyond the range of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle that three American companies are developing for NASA under contracts announced April 3.
In other words, the American space car industry is doing just as well as the American Earth car industry. (i.e. getting beaten by Toyota, who is building the Lunar Cruiser)
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You would expect Toyota to be an excellent partner for NASA. They spend $10B/year on R&D, they're the biggest car company in the world by many metrics, and this is a great opportunity for them to showcase their expertise. Japanese interest in the US space program could encourage more private investment in the space industry.
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You would expect Toyota to be an excellent partner for NASA. They spend $10B/year on R&D, they're the biggest car company in the world by many metrics, and this is a great opportunity for them to showcase their expertise. Japanese interest in the US space program could encourage more private investment in the space industry.
And probably less likely to be subject to a recall like a GM, Ford, or Stellantis (aka FIAT) automobile.
As for that airbag recall, the list is much shorter of car makers that were not impacted by that recall
Can they do it? (Score:2)
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NASA seem pretty confident that they will.
NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-rele... [nasa.gov]