[KevinDavis]

I wish them the best of luck..

[KevinDavis]

[DTogo]

Just another excuse to funnel tax-payer Yen into a losing government program. They'd be better served teaming up with Boeing or another foreign company with a track record of successes.

Japan * BONG *

[Rex Anderson]

Very bod move.

[Al Gator]

I disagree with the other posts on this.

The Japanese are confronting the transitions that the US had to make in the late '70s and '80s. Namely, moving from a manufacturing base to a service base to a high-tech base.

They are smart enough to look into the future, as we have done here, and understand that survival requires bold moves.

The tea leaves say: "Gotta get off the planet!"

I'm thinking you will definitely see a lot of government involvment in this program.

But then again, the Japanese have always been more of fascist (that's strictly an economic term, used in it's original context of fascisti economic theory) economy that enjoys a high degree of private and government cooperation.

[RightWhale]

It's about time the Japanese got their space program in gear. They should have been competitive with NASA and way ahead of Russia all along. Where the heck have they been, in a vegetative state?