Space, no longer dominated by two world nations, the United States and the former Soviet Union, is rapidly becoming a world market. Space programs are replacing armies as a sign of power and prestige. Japan's entry as a player in big space business not only marks its place in the world but in the world market.
Japan has the third largest and most successful space program in the world. Japan's program is divided into two separate agencies: NASDA (National Space Development Agency) and ISAS (Institute for Space and Astronautical Science).
NASDA is commercially oriented and has been overseeing the launch of communications, broadcast, and remote sensing satellites as well as the development of Japan's new launch rocket, the H-II. It is also developing HOPE, a small automatically piloted craft similar to the shuttle that will be able to ferry crews and supplies to and from the proposed international space station Freedom.
ISAS is a small and highly academic organization that has launched simple but very efficient and effective scientific missions to Halley's comet and the Moon, and conducted highly successful astrophysics experiments. Its reputation for solid and creative science and engineering allow it to take a meager budget farther than most space agencies.
In addition to these two organizations are Japan's powerful and visionary conglomerates and corporations such as Mitsubishi, Shimizu, Obayashi, and others, which are considering enormous space projects that may require international cooperation: resorts in Earth orbit and on the Moon, lunar scientific bases, orbiting solar-power satellites, and enormously complex colonies on Mars.
