Japan wants to grab the "first moon landing in Asia", and the truth is that it is | the Kyo Brewery

On December 28, Japan's cabinet officially announced that it would revise the timeline of its space exploration program with the goal of sending the first Japanese to the lunar surface between 2025 and 2030.

Seemingly ambitious

The Japan Aerospace Research and Development Agency did not originally set a clear schedule for a manned lunar landing, but in December 2017 it signed a lunar unmanned exploration program called the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) with the Indian Space Research Organization. According to the plan, Japan will not be able to complete the first unmanned soft landing on the lunar surface and the first unmanned lunar driving of the lunar rover until 2024 at the earliest.

Obviously, if Japan continues to promote LUPEX step by step, it will fall behind in the race to the moon.

On December 28, Kishida announced at a meeting of government agencies dealing with space policy that Japan would successfully land on the moon between 2025 and 2030, thus becoming "the world's first outside of Americans."

Kishida said that space "is not only a frontier for people to hope and dream, but also provides an important foundation for economic security for the economy and society." ”

▲ In 2019, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Toyota Corporation intend to develop a manned supercharged lunar rover model. Photo: Xinhua News Agency

It's a "free ride"

However, how a country that has not yet achieved a soft landing on the lunar surface can complete the "leapfrog development" of "landing on the moon before a soft landing" cannot help but make people wonder.

In fact, after removing the ostensibly ambitious rhetoric, the revised Japanese moon landing plan actually abandoned the "independent lunar exploration" that had insisted on and proudly for decades, and instead turned to the "Artemis Plan" that was dependent on the United States.

The Artemis Project began with the American Constellation Project at the end of the 20th century. On May 14, 2019, the code name "Artemis" was officially announced. At the end of 2020, Trump's re-election failed, and people were once worried that it would be cancelled or turned around again due to the Previous Democratic Party's fierce attack on the "Artemis" plan as "laboring and hurting the people" and "not being too bad". But on February 4, 2021, the Biden administration approved Artemis and added funding. Nevertheless, the first Orion manned spacecraft and combined launch test with the new Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket, which was originally scheduled for 2023, was postponed to May 2024 for various reasons.

The total project price of the "Artemis" project is said to have exceeded 23.011 billion US dollars, the net cost of each launch is as high as 2 billion US dollars, and the annual daily maintenance cost is also 2.555 billion US dollars, but it is difficult to see short-term financial effects.

In the current situation where the US debt is high and heavy gold is needed to be filled everywhere, if it blindly "burns money", it will inevitably be criticized by Congress, the opposition party, and the public, so pulling a few "free-riders" and helping themselves to share some costs has become a top priority for the United States to maintain "Artemis". Europe, Canada and even New Zealand have all been "door-to-door peddling" by NASA this year. Although it was seriously injured by the bursting of the bubble economy, Japan, which still has a good financial foundation, has naturally become the focus of NASA's "peddling".

Although Kishida Fumio did not disclose the details and the total amount of expenses shared by Japan, one thing is clear: Japan's so-called "completion of the manned moon landing ahead of schedule" and "striving to achieve the first in Asia" is in essence abandoning the long-term policy and practice of "independent moon landing and moon exploration" and instead "hitchhiking" with the United States to achieve "anti-overtaking" against China.

Is it worth it?

However, over the past few days, many space enthusiasts in Japan have constantly asked the question of "is it worth it?" On February 11, 1970, Japan's first artificial earth satellite "Osumi" was launched, becoming the first country in Asia and the fourth country in the world to launch an artificial earth satellite autonomously; on July 3, 1998, "Hope" tried to achieve Asia's first unmanned Mars exploration (but not in orbit); on May 9, 2003, "Hayabusa" achieved Asia's first asteroid exploration...

Although Japanese scientists once ridiculed themselves as "Japan cannot do a large-scale system project like the 'Apollo Program'", for a long time, Japan's space exploration and development have gained respect around the world by "adhering to autonomy", and was once called a template for "achieving limited but clear goals with limited funds".

The LUPEX plan in 2017 itself seems to be impatient and aggressive, and India's "bundling" not only failed to "1 + 1 is greater than 2", but also dragged each other down; and now for a moment, choose to give up independent development of lunar landing, lunar exploration, and even heavy-duty launch capabilities, seemingly taking shortcuts, but actually paying too much price.

What's more, the large-scale space program in the United States in recent years has been dragged down by the fierce party struggle, and large projects such as "landing on the moon or landing on Mars" often take more than ten years or decades to implement, which means that it will span several governments. There are many uncertainties in the future of the "Artemis" car that Japan will take, and when it will depart, and whether the terminal station will be the moon. At that time, once the "route is changed", where will Japan, which is the status of "passenger", go?

Beijing News special writer | Tao Short Room (Columnist)

Edit | Li Xiaoxiao

Proofreading | Chen Diyan