U.S. and Japan agree to send Japanese astronaut to Gateway and the Moon
In a deal negotiated for signing this week while President Biden was in Japan, the United States and Japan have agreed to send a Japanese astronaut on a mission to the Lunar Gateway station, as well as begin planning for a Japanese astronaut to land on the Moon, all part of the Artemis program.
The agreement also confirmed the exchange of material from the countries’ two sample return asteroid missions, Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx.
None of this is a surprise. Not only was Japan one of the first to sign the Artemis Accords, Japanese subcontractors are already providing some of the life support equipment for Gateway.
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Currently NASA astronauts need to learn a bit of Russian in order to go to the ISS. I wonder if they will in the future be encouraged to learn a bit of Japanese instead to go on missions beyond the ISS.
David K.
Let’s celebrate English as the language for the Artemis Program, Moon exploration, Mars Colonization & the future of humanity in Space.
English is the official language in 53 countries and is spoken as a first language by more than 400 million people worldwide.
It is the most common second language in the world.
Furthermore English is certainly the language of science in the modern world, with an estimated 98% of all scientific publications being written in English.
The alternative is Mandarin.
For the record, I’m all for Japanese origami & ramen as part of the Artemis program.