COVER STORY • The Future of Space as Global Commons • 9

SInterview with Shoichiro Asada, Executive Director of Japan Space Forumpace as a New Business
Frontier — a Japanese Space
Development Pioneer’s View

By Japan SPOTLIGHT
Japanese space engineers have been working on space development for a long time and havecontributed greatly to reducing the technology gap between Japan and the United States. Shoichiro
Asada, executive director of Japan Space Forum and a former senior executive engineer of Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, Ltd., is one of those distinguished rocket engineers in Japan. He talked to JapanSPOTLIGHT about the history of space development in Japan, the implications of space for our daily lives,
and the current status and future of Japanese space business development.
(Interviewed on May 9, 2018)

Introduction

old-fashioned N-I rocket. However, the US
rocket development project was stopped
then. Japan, on the other hand, continued
JS: Could you briefly introduce
to make progress and finally succeeded inyour professional history as anlaunching the H-II rocket in 1994, the firstengineer who has been involved
rocket wholly made in Japan. Furthermore,in a number of crucial spacein 1989, we started a project called “HOPE”
development projects in Japan?
(H-II Orbiting Plane), an attempt to
produce a space shuttle on a Japanese
Asada: I gained a Master’s degree in 1981
version returning from space andfrom the Institute of Space andreentering Earth’s atmosphere. I worked on
Astronautical Science at the University ofthis project in charge of system design. It
Tokyo, the predecessor to the Japan
was a very interesting project, as the
Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), andexperimental spacecraft was the first suchjoined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, andvehicle in Japan assumed to reenter thethen started working on development of a
atmosphere. However, around 10 years
liquid fuel rocket. In Japanese rocket
after the start of the project it was stopped
technology, there are two kinds of rocket: ain 2001. It was probably a little too
liquid fuel one and a solid fuel one. Dr.
premature to start such a project, since
Hideo Itokawa, regarded as the father ofthere was no International Space Station
Japanese rocket and space development,
Shoichiro Asada(ISS) yet.
worked on the trial launch of a Pencil
When I came back to rocket development from this project, a big
rocket in 1955. This was a solid fuel one under the jurisdiction of theturning point in Japanese rocket development occurred. This was the
Ministry of Education, and it was later taken over by JAXA. On theprivatization of a rocket launch project under the administration ofother hand, the National Space Development Agency of Japan
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2003. I was involved in this
(NASDA) under the jurisdiction of the Science and Technology Agency
turning point as a businessman of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, whichof the Japanese government, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
in 2007 was successful in launching the H-IIA rocket as a privatizeddeveloped the N-I rocket using liquid fuel by importing technology
project. At that moment, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries wasfrom the US for launching an artificial satellite with a commercial
transformed from a company engaged in development andpurpose. I was then mainly in charge of the design of the structure
manufacturing of rockets into one engaged in transportation services
and also the mechanical design involving vibration analysis, thermalin charge of launching artificial satellites into orbit. My mission was
analysis and separation analysis of the N-I and N-II, H-I, H-II rockets.
also changed from rocket development to sales of satellite launch
It was exactly in 1981 when I joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
services, and in 2007 I became director of space business atthat the US achieved the inaugural launch of the Space Shuttle. I recall
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and in 2011 general manager of spacethat I thought then it would be extremely difficult to catch up with US
systems, responsible for all the space-related business. I tentatively
rocket technology, having seen Japan still working on developing the
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COVER STORY 9

left the space business when I became executive vice president of
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc. in 2015. Meanwhile, I was
continuously working on rocket development as chairman of theJapanese Rocket Society from 2014 to 2016, the oldest Japanese
association for space development. Since June 2017, I have been
executive director of Japan Space Forum.
JS: Could you explain what Japan Space Forum’s
mission and main business activities are?
Asada: Japan Space Forum’s principal mission is “to bridge endusers and providers of space development”. Among those end-users,
there are a variety of people ranging from space development experts
to the general public. Specifically, we support university researchers
hoping to do a space experiment, run an observatory facility for spacedebris and organize an international conference for space experts,
conduct research on overseas aerospace information, and engage inexperimental education programs and the designing and producing ofspace-related goods. We are thus working on many issues. We havealso been working for 20 years as the secretariat of a “satellite designcontest” for students.
JS: Does bridging end-users and providers of spacedevelopment mean connecting the world of satellites
with scientists interested in space as a venue for all
kinds of scientific experiments?

Asada: No. What we would like to do most is to enlighten theordinary public with basic knowledge on space activity. We are much
more eager to deepen the understanding of the general public about
space than connect space with a wide range of academic researchers.

Implications of Space for
Human Beings Today
JS: With continuing scientific and technologicaldevelopment, how important do you think space will
become for human beings in the future?

Asada: Whenever I tell people I am working on space, many respondto me by saying, “What a fantastic job you have! Your job must be fullof dreams.” I am always saying to them, “That is not correct. Space
has a much more real impact on your routine life.”
Even at this moment, without space activities our routine lives
would not function. This reality does seem to be strangely unknown
to the public. For example, the time system in our contemporary age
is controlled by the Global Positioning System (GPS). The time on
your mobile phone is automatically adjusted by GPS. The time
management of all the prices of the stocks, bonds and exchanges in
the world is done by GPS. In other words, if GPS is wrong, the world
economy would be in a panic. You are constantly checking what time
it is by a mobile phone, but you are not conscious of the time being
controlled by space. Space activity is indispensable for weather
forecasts as well. By surveillance from space, we can now manage tohave precise weather forecasts. Telecommunication and satellite

broadcasts are other examples. Satellites are also used in otherdomains which are not directly related to your routine life. For
example, surveillance for illegal deforestation in the Amazon area or
farming administration is such a domain. In Latin America, North
America or Australia where they have vast areas for farming, they canutilize the information from satellites to know about harvest times or
the time for fertilizing. It is also used for disaster mitigation in
droughts or floods and for measuring greenhouse gases.
On the other hand, there are some activities in progress forrealizing humans’ dreams, such as observation or exploration of otherplanets. Discovering how Earth came into existence by such activities
could be useful for the survival of the human race. From thisperspective as well, I believe space activity will be a crucial
infrastructure for human life.
JS: What do you think about Big Data to be provided

from space?

Asada: Space could provide a wide range of Big Data. There areinteresting examples. In space, there is no concept of national
territory. Strictly speaking, there is no rigorous rule to determine anation’s territory in the sky, but in terms of general customs, anational territory in the sky is be defined as being in a domain nohigher than 100 kilometers. Artificial satellites are working above thisheight and they would be able to see the whole Earth. For example,
we can measure a country’s oil reserves by getting data on the heightof oil tanks. An American company measures all nations’ oil reserves
by analyzing photos of oil tanks all over the world taken by thosesatellites and they use this data for oil price forecasting. Also, thiscompany measures the changing number of the automobiles in aparking lot of a supermarket by using photos taken by satellites. They
analyze this data and evaluate the business situation accordingly to
see whether the supermarket business is getting better or worse, andprovide investors with their report. Innumerable amounts of datafrom space have never been used so far, but now many people arestarting to explore effective usage of such Big Data by dataprocessing.
JS: If you do this too spontaneously it could infringe
an individual’s privacy or threaten national security.
Are there any efforts beginning to create rules toaddress such concerns?
Asada: At this moment, there are no rules on the use of data obtained
from space. However, data from highly resolved images is used only
for military purposes and is not available to the public. A benefit ofspace is that it is no nation’s territory. There is only one single rule inspace, and that is that it must not be occupied by anybody. This has
been agreed by many countries.
JS: Do you think some rules need to be adopted?
Asada: Yes, we need to make rules. Without any rules, there would be
extreme difficulties, as we have a significant congestion problem inspace.
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COVER STORY 9

JS: In light of the impact of space upon daily life as
you mentioned, we guess the size of the market ofthe space industry in Japan should be much greater.
Is this smaller size caused by insufficientunderstanding among the Japanese public about therole of space in their daily lives?
Asada: Yes. In Japan there are not many companies skillfully using
data from the images taken in space. Services using this data, such
as Google Map, are not popular in Japan. In the US there are many
ventures producing such services for users, but in Japan this is not
the case. This is a challenge for us in the future.
JS: What other challenges for Japanese spacebusiness do you see in the future?

Japanese Contribution to Space Development
JS: How do you assess Japan’s contribution to spacedevelopment?

Asada: First, Japan is the only Asian country participating in the ISS.
This is, I believe, an enormous contribution. There have been someJapanese astronauts active at the ISS. Nobushige Kanai is now
staying there and it was decided that Akihiko Hoshide will be thesecond Japanese captain of the ISS in 2020, following Koichi Wakata.
Thus, though Japan has no manned spacecraft, it has acquired acertain reputation in the activities of the ISS. Japan has also been
sharing the workload in surveillance of the global environment alongwith the US and Europe, and has engaged in surveillance on CO2emissions and forests. A Japanese observatory satellite is working on
measuring CO2. Exploration attempts will be started for the Moon andMars, and Japan will join these activities as well.
JS: What do you think of the capacity of Japanesespace development-related industries and theireconomic impact upon other industries?

Asada: There is an index of space industrial competitivenessmeasured by the number of launched satellites, quality and capacityof a produced rocket, and the number of space engineers, as well as
the spacecraft-producing companies. According to this index, theJapanese space industry follows the US, Europe, Russia and China.
There is little technology gap with the US and Europe in hardware
such as rocket and satellite technology, but in terms of money andhuman resources for space development Japan is far behind. For
example, China has spent enormous amounts of money and humanresources on space development, and we cannot be their competitor.
The number of Japanese rocket engineers is at maximum around
1,500, while the number of employees for only one single spacedevelopment company in China is more than 100,000. The Japanesespace equipment industry’s total business sales including producers
and users are around 8 trillion yen, corresponding to those of the
shipbuilding industry in Japan and about one-tenth of the Japanesewholesale industry.
42 Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 2018

Asada: The scale of the space industry worldwide, excluding the user
business, is around 37 trillion yen, of which Japanese businessaccounts for only 2.7 trillion yen, less than 10% of the total. Thus
Japanese space business cannot play a leading role in the world. The
main client of Japanese space business is the Japanese government
and its scale corresponds to the size of the government budget forspace activities. We would need to acquire more overseas clients.
JS: This means we need many more existing
companies or ventures to enter the space industry?
Asada: Yes, indeed. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government
would input an additional 100 billion yen over the next five years into
new space business and implement an international human resources
exchange on the occasion of the announcement of the third GrandPrix of Space Development and Utilization. So far, space business has
been considered one with a high entry barrier due mainly to its highcosts, but in the US today some venture businesses have started to
get into the space industry, which seems to be changing thispreconception. In Japan as well, there are some ventures emerging
that are working on development of small satellites.

The Future of Space Ventures
JS: Space business looks very attractive, but can wesee more young people starting it?

Asada: Yes, it looks attractive but it is different from IT business. Its
initial costs would be enormous. You need billions of yen rather thanmillions to start up a space business. In Japan today, a space start-up
company, ispace, working on a project for natural resources
development on the Moon, succeeded in procuring 10 billion yen incapital to proceed with the project. The investors include theInnovation Network Corporation of Japan, Development Bank ofJapan, TBS Holdings, Dentsu Inc. and KDDI. So we have just started
to see an example of a space venture today in Japan.
Looking at examples outside Japan, a US company, Rocket Lab,working on a small rocket development, was successful in acquiring$148 million in total. Jeffrey Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, sells $1

COVER STORY 9

billion of his own company’s stocks and invests the money every year
in a space development venture business founded by himself. Elon
Musk, the co-founder of PayPal who runs electric car producer Tesla,
set up a space development venture called SpaceX by using capitalobtained by selling PayPal shares. There are now new space ventures
emerging one after another in the steps of these two distinguishedbusiness leaders.
JS: Besides ispace, are there any other notable
Japanese space ventures?
Asada: Yes, there are unique ventures in Japan as well. Astroscale, aventure company trying to decrease space debris for the first time in
the world, was founded by a Japanese. Their R&D office is in Japanand their headquarters is in Singapore. Mitsunobu Okada, its CEO,
used to work for the Japanese Ministry of Finance. He told me,“I decided to do this business because I was told that nobody had
ever tried and it would be impossible to find the relevant technology
for retrieving space debris.” He has also been promoting space debris
elimination activities and they have been instrumental in starting
serious discussions on possible rule making for space debris. There
are other unique space ventures emerging in Japan, such as
Infostellar Inc., which provides an antenna-sharing service forreceiving data from satellites, and ALE Co. Ltd, which provides
entertainment by creating artificial shooting stars with special grains
released from a satellite.
JS: How about large Japanese enterprises? Are they

ready to make important decisions on investment inspace development business?

Asada: Sales of space-related business to total sales of Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries amount to only 1-1.5%. In the case of Mitsubishi
Electric they are around 2% and in the case of NEC less than 1%.
Thus space business is not a key to a company’s whole destiny, andwe cannot expect a decisive scale investment. I have always said thatspace development would be a show window display business.
Though sales do not matter, if we are successful the impact on
business would be significant. This is the same even for large US
companies such as Lockheed or Boeing. Where they differ fromJapan is in their active support for space ventures by establishingfunds for support. In Japan, there are not so many companies
supporting space ventures. The exception is Softbank led by
Masayoshi Son. He invested $1 billion in the US venture OneWeb
developing telecommunications technology using electromagnetic
waves from a satellite.

Asada: Deep space exploration must be initiated by national
governments under international collaboration, since private businesscannot pay the costs. But space business will be exposed tointernational competition. Another big issue emerging currently inspace is space debris. At sea, there are rules for avoiding collisions
between ships under navigation. But in space there are no rules forthat and nobody can judge which spacecraft would be responsible fora collision. Rule-making for space traffic management will benecessary. Furthermore, there are no rules to determine who should
be in charge of cleaning up the massive amounts of space debris.
With a collision of satellites, there would be a lot of debris and thatdebris could increase with further collisions, and space would thennot be able to be utilized well anymore. In order to prevent this, wewill definitely need international collaboration. Although this issue of
space debris has not been discussed much so far, since there would
be conflicts of interest among nations and also enormous costs incleaning it up (almost corresponding to the cost of launching an
artificial satellite), it is now gradually being discussed among nations.
Another issue for international collaboration is space resources
development. All nations have agreed to the rule that nobody canmonopolize space. But there is no clear consensus about ownershipof natural resources on the Moon or Mars. Such rule making would
provide Japan with a good opportunity to take an initiative in spacedevelopment and thus we advocate for Japanese leadership on this.

New Project by Japan Space Forum
JS: Could you tell us about your future projects forJapan Space Forum?
Asada: What I have been desiring to do for a long time is to found abank of human resources for space business. Many space engineers
including myself, who have worked hard on space development, are
now retired. I would like to make a venue for matching up retired
engineers and young people interested in space business. I would liketo add a space information center to this venue to respond to theneed for consultations on space business. So it would be a think tankwhere you could find detailed information about space.
I would also like people interested in collecting maritime
information to utilize the information from space, since it is difficult to
get it at sea, though Japan is an oceanic country. I also believe that
we should be well prepared for the occasion in the near future whenthe ISS is privatized.

International Cooperation for Space
Development
JS: We suppose that international cooperation is key
to achieving space development. How do you thinkinternational cooperation and competition can be
developed?

Shoichiro Asada has been executive director of Japan Space Forum sinceJune 2017. He is a former senior executive engineer of Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries, Ltd.

Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201843