TOKYO —

An advisory panel on Thursday adopted a report that urges the Japanese government to implement a 200 billion yen moon exploration program using robots, including building an unmanned exploration base by 2020,  government officials said.

The report, compiled by the panel chaired by Katsuhiko Shirai, president of Waseda University, caps one year of deliberations by its members. The panel advises the government’s Strategic Headquarters for Space Development.  The panel will shortly submit the report to space development minister Seiji Maehara.  The report will be referred to when the government devises Japan’s space exploration plans.

The report recommends that Japan arrange for a lunar exploration vehicle to make a soft landing on the surface of the moon in 2015.  It also proposes that Japan install an unmanned exploration base around the southern pole of the moon in 2020 with an eye to getting a robot to explore the heavenly body for several months.

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4 Comments

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  noriyosan73 at 01:20 PM JST - 31st July

  Spend the money on the Japanese children and their education. Anyone can access NASA and other US governmental agencies. Just look at the recent disclosure of classified documents. If Japan is interest in the future, it will prepare its children with an outstanding education. Start with a free lap top computer for every entering high school or university student. Then, after three years tell the student to keep it as a present. Y30000 investment is nothing because the world of knowledge is at the student's fingertips. Jobs will not be created in the space industry, but who knows how many jobs will be created by the well educated young people.

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  hrd1231 at 03:27 PM JST - 31st July

  Sounds like a massive waste of taxpayers money.

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  borscht at 10:00 PM JST - 31st July

  noriyosan73,

  You have an interesting point. Singapore invested heavily in education in the 50s and they managed to make a few billion plus jobs etc. Maybe it's time for Japan to think of the future, too. Landing robots and an unmanned base on the moon is great idea that might produce useful information and collateral products but only if the population knows how to use it.

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  sf2k at 12:56 AM JST - 2nd August

  spend the money to end discrimination in Japan and pass workplace laws. There is real work to do, not playing with toys for a population that has such a dismal understanding of anyone else let alone the sciences.

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