Domestic Rivalry in the 1960s

The San Francisco Peace Treaty of September 1951 removed the prohibitions that had been imposed on Japan’s development of atomic energy and aerospace research for peaceful purposes. Local elites, determined to modernize the coun­try, seized the opportunity to pursue atomic and space science research for inter­national prestige and scientific and economic benefits.

The early history of space in Japan is marked by the tension between oppos­ing concepts of how to secure a position for the country in space. On the one hand there was the nationalist impulse of Hideo Itokawa who was determined to remain independent of foreign help and indeed of government “interference” in his research agenda. Itokawa advocated the pursuit of space sciences using sounding rockets and believed in the incremental development of solid propel­lant sounding rockets to launch scientific and application satellites. His views were diametrically opposed to those of Kanuro Kaneshige.3 Kaneshige aimed to use space technologies for economic and commercial benefit and sought inter­national cooperation for forwarding his country’s space goals. He was open to international cooperation and sought assistance from other foreign countries, mainly the United States and Europe, to nurture the fledgling program through cooperative endeavors.

Born in 1912, Hideo Itokawa graduated from the Imperial University of Tokyo and was involved in designing aircraft at Nakajima Aircraft Company dur­ing World War II. Concerned about the decline of the Japanese aerospace indus­try after the war, he galvanized the scientific elite at select institutions and created a niche within Tokyo University—the Institute for Industrial Science (IIS)—for research in aeronautics and space sciences.

In 1954 Itokawa’s group obtained a modest research grant to develop sound­ing rockets.4 A Japanese committee was formed in the spring of 1955 to coordi­nate a rocket project to coincide with the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The momentum generated while preparing for the IGY led to the establishment of a team that promoted the development and launching of sounding rockets for the collection of scientific data.5 In April 1955 the IIS exhibited to the public the first results of Japanese space research: a tiny rocket with tail fins called the Pencil. As the name implied this rocket was in the form of metal tubes mea­suring 23 centimeters in length and 1.8 centimeters in diameter and weighing around 200 grams. It was filled with solid propellants, similar to gunpowder.

The IIS was renamed the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) in 1964. Building on the experience gained with the Pencil rocket experiments the Itokawa group gradually scaled up their research and development to build the Kappa, Lambda, and Mu series of sounding rockets. Restrictions imposed on postwar Japan limited the launch vehicles to diameters of 1.4 meters or less. Itokawa’s personal view was that there was no need for Japan to develop rockets larger than the Mu because miniaturization would permit smaller payloads to do greater tasks.6 Stressing the possibilities inherent in miniaturization, he said that the Lambda series rocket could orbit a 100-kilogram satellite by increasing the booster’s diameter from 750 to 850 centimeters. Tokyo University could thus handle the application satellite program. He was not in favor of developing liquid fuels, though they had advantages for control purposes, and he dismissed suggestions that he collaborate with the National Aerospace Laboratory’s (NAL) nascent liquid fuel program.7

ISAS collaborated reluctantly with NASA in some experiments and research. Itokawa argued that having the United States launch Japanese satellites would take more time and money, would be less flexible, and would prevent the growth of Japan’s own technology. He also feared a loss of autonomy for his university – based group, believing that if he received assistance from abroad he would be accountable to the United States and to the Japanese government. As Emmerson and Reischauer put it, “As a matter of policy, the Japanese preferred to sacrifice short-term gains in speed and budgets in the interest of the made-in Japan prin­ciple. The technological experience and the pride and prestige of an exclusively Japanese effort were at that time more important than the speed of the space program.”8 Itokawa’s quest for autonomy came at a price. Four failed attempts to launch a scientific satellite using rockets developed by ISAS led to consider­able public criticism. It also bedeviled relations with NASA. Since ISAS was the dominant space group in Japan at that time, the United States took ISAS’s nega­tive stance more generally as indicative of a Japanese policy of noncooperation.9

As mentioned earlier, Itokawa’s group was not the only one engaged in devel­oping rocketry in the 1960s. The other was the National Space Development Center (NSDC) set up in July 1964. The NSDC and its governing body, the Science and Technology Agency (STA), were open to international collabora­tion and wanted to emulate the “leader-follower model,” meaning “identifying the leader in technological capability and learning as much as possible from its accomplishments, then building on that learning to develop a strong indigenous technology base.”10 The NSDC took responsibility for developing liquid-fueled rockets (the so-called Q series) for launching applications satellites rather than the pure space sciences pursued by the academic team at ISAS.

The NSDC was established by the National Space Activities Council (NSAC) chaired by Kankuro Kaneshige, also of Tokyo University. The council’s role was to coordinate the mushrooming space activities in Japan after the IGY. It had represen­tatives from universities and key organizations like the Atomic Energy Commission, the Meteorological Agency, the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, the Institute of Industrial Science, and the National Aeronautical Laboratory. It also acted as an advisory body to the prime minister Eisaku Sato and formed the central node for governing the scattered space activities. In February 1964 the NSAC presented a report to Sato stressing that cooperation among the various government minis­tries and agencies alone was not enough to attain success in the development of launching vehicles, the construction of satellites, rocket launchings, and research on related matters. It recommended the establishment of a central executive organ on space development to promote comprehensively and efficiently the development of techniques in various fields.11 Thus was the NSDC born, both to foster inter­national collaboration and to create an alternative technological path to that being pursued by Itokawa with a view to launching telecommunications satellites.

The attempt to centralize space-related activities in Japan was not only a response to domestic divisions; external factors also influenced the shape of the institutional structure. First, the desire to be a player/participant in the emerging field of space sciences and applications was motivated by seeing the advances made by the United States and the Soviet Union. Second, officials in Japan felt obliged to participate constructively in international negotiations over the Outer Space Treaty that was opened for signature in January 1967. And finally, the creation of a governmental body was invoked by government officials so as to position the country favorably in the negotiations over the definitive Intelsat agreements that got under way in 1969 and that would define the terms of access to a global telecommunications satellite system (see chapter 5). Though Japan was keen to be party to the Intelsat agreements, its officials were cautious not to accept any unfavorable conditions that would jeopardize their own technological capabilities in satellite development or the domestic and regional use of comsats.12