AFTER a string of launch failures, Japan’s three space agencies will be
merged into a single body by 2003. The education and science minister Atsuko
Toyama said last week that the National Space Development Agency (NASDA), the
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and the National Aerospace
Laboratory (NAL) will join forces to become Japan’s equivalent of NASA.
NASDA is charged with developing the commercial exploitation of space, but
launch failures forced it to scrap its heavy-lifting H-2 rocket. It then
postponed the debut of the slimmed-down H-2A after three launches in a row were
aborted
(New Scientist, 18…
