NASA, Japan, and the International Space Station

Sweeping adjectives abound when one reads about the construction of the International Space Station in scholarly journals, newspapers and trade publications.

True to its name it brings together a team of international players—mostly devel­oped countries—to contribute components for assembling in orbit a platform for basic scientific research and for ambitious future exploratory missions (see chap­ter 14). Japan is one of the key partners in this international venture, and this col­laboration remains to date the largest space effort between Japan and the United States. By deciding to participate in the space station in the early 1980s Japan gained the needed visibility as a space-faring nation. The 1980s also saw Japan’s participation in many international scientific programs and joint science and tech­nology collaborations with the United States.

Japan’s main contribution to the Space Station comes in the form of an in-or­bit floating laboratory called the Japanese Experimental Module (JEM) or Kibo meaning “hope.” The first element was successfully added to the International Space Station in the spring of 2009, the complete package was assembled in fall 2009.41 Kibo’s main purpose was to create an ideal environment for the study of the earth’s environment and perform microgravity experiments.42 It will also house the world’s largest wide angle X-ray camera for galactic studies. The mod­ule consists of two facilities: the pressurized module that simulates a condition similar to what we experience on Earth and an exposed facility for long-term experiments in outer space.

Kibo was not the only contribution foreseen for the ISS. JAXA also planned to build a Centrifuge Accommodations Model (CAM). CAM’s core was a 2.5- meter-long centrifuge that would have provided controlled exposure of various biological specimens to a range of gravity levels from as little as 0.01 g to 2 g. The program was cancelled as part of NASA’s response to President Bush’s January 2004 Vision for Space Exploration.43 That vision called for the develop­ment of a Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) to take astronauts to and from the moon and the ISS, and a Crew Launch Vehicle (Ares I). It also directed NASA to restrict research on the ISS to elements that supported the vision. To meet these requirements NASA reduced the number of launches to the ISS before September 2010 from 28 to 16, and dropped plans to launch Russia’s Science Power Platform and Japan’s CAM, whose flight model, along with the engineer­ing model of the centrifuge rotor had already been manufactured.

The Japanese motivation to cooperate in the Space Station dates back to the early 1980s when Japan’s space program was still in its growth phase—it was yet to build its own application satellite and launch vehicles. The earlier invitation by the United States to cooperate with the space shuttle was turned down by Japan because of deep concerns about its own technological capabilities and the financial commitment involved in a cooperative endeavor when it was struggling with its fledgling space program. In the words of John Logsdon, “Japan, forced to sit on the sidelines during Shuttle development, was determined not to be left out of the next major cooperative opportunity.”44

Though the invitation to participate in the space station was made during President Reagan’s State of the Union address on January 25, 1984, the nego­tiations and planning started much earlier. Significant meetings were organized in 1982 and 1983 to plan for the space station with potential partners that included Japan. In May 1981, a special Space Station Task Force was formed under the Space Activities Commission in Japan to coordinate station-related activities through interaction with other government, semigovernment, and private agencies. Though Japan was positive about participating in the Space Station, the financial commitment to develop their own indigenous H-II launch vehicle demanded negotiations with their own space team for simultaneously committing resources for both projects—the H-II and the space station.

As Japan wanted to be an international player in human space flight, it committed itself to contributing to the Space Station. It efficiently allocated its resources and did the preparatory work well in advance. The Kibo module remained steadily on course throughout the period from approval in 1989 to arrival at the Tsukuba space center in 1997, weathering the storms of the trans­formation of the station from President Reagan’s Freedom to President Clinton’s International Space Station that included Russia. For Japan, the ISS in general and its own module in particular offered the opportunity for a permanent par­ticipation in manned space flight and a platform where research could be carried out into manufacturing technologies in weightlessness and vacuum.45

Japan’s participation in the space station was not welcomed by many scientists and policy analysts in the country. They saw it as a needless drain on resources when Japan should be concentrating on building a robust space program.46 As John Logsdon put it, this led the government to recognize that “it could not both accept the U. S. offer and satisfy its other space objectives without increas­ing its financial commitment to space.” Having decided to do so, a broad con­sensus was brokered between government and industry from 1982 to 1984 in favor of collaborating with the United States in exploring the potential of human space flight.47 Seen in this light, the Space Station has both increased resources for the Japanese space effort and contributed to building that autonomy in space that the country has pursued for the last 60 years.

NASA and the Politics of Delta Launch Vehicle Technology Transfer to Japan

As described in the previous chapter, Japan’s quest for the development of an indigenous launch capability began with the pioneering efforts of Itokawa and his team at IIS in the 1950s and at ISAS in the 1960s. Their program to develop solid propellant vehicles (Kappa, Lambda, Mu) for launching mini satellites to low earth orbit was thwarted in the late 1960s by three consecutive technologi­cal failures along with ongoing internal problems. These setbacks left the field open for the rival solid – and liquid-fuel program being undertaken by the NSDC, which progressed from developing a three-stage Q rocket in the 1960s to an N series constructed with American help in the 1970s. This was established with an intergovernmental agreement in which Washington undertook “to provide to the Japanese Government or to Japanese industry under contract with the Japanese Government, unclassified technology and equipment [. . .] for the development of Japanese Q and N launch vehicles and communications and other satellites for peaceful purposes.”1 This chapter focuses on the circumstances leading up to this arrangement, which was strongly promoted by the State Department, and the difficulties that NASA faced in interpreting its scope, and in cooperating with its implementation. That experience, in turn, enabled Japan to develop a “home­grown” H series of rockets in the 1980s, the latest being H-IIA capable of placing application satellites weighing more than two tons in geosynchronous orbit.2

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Hideo Itokawa’s determination to build solid-fuel rockets without foreign assistance caused some consternation in the United States. The State Department noted that the Japanese were not only offering these rockets for sale—which it “did not consider to be a sig­nificant source of proliferation of solid fuel technology”—but were also offer­ing licensing arrangements for their production abroad, especially to Indonesia and Yugoslavia—which was of considerable concern.3 The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) that was set up as an independent body by Congress is 1961, specifically to deal with all aspects of arms control, nonpro­liferation, and disarmament, emphasized the possibility that the rockets could morph into strategic nuclear-capable ballistic missiles within three years no mat­ter what America did. The United States, it suggested, could counter this devel­opment by offering Japan liquid-fuel rocket technology. As the ACDA put it in

September 1966, the United States had the “ability to influence the course of Japan’s rocket developments” by making “certain areas of space-rocket technol­ogy” that were less relevant to missiles “more attractive.”4 Such a move would also bolster Japan’s prestige and would be in line with the kind of support the United States was offering to the European program in ELDO (see chapter 3).

The moves made by the State Department in the mid-1960s to engage Japan in closer collaboration with the United States in the wake of the 1964 Chinese nuclear test (see previous chapter) were part and parcel of a general effort to contain Tokyo’s nuclear aspirations, if they should ever emerge. As a memo sent to the embassy in Tokyo put it, “[G]iven Japanese capability to develop—if it chose to change current policy—nuclear weapons delivery system unilaterally and without foreign assistance,” space cooperation could serve US policy objectives “of both discouraging proliferation tendencies in Japan and encouraging contin­ued Japanese focus on exclusively peaceful exploitation of space.” The alternative, “denying to Japan certain unclassified technology relating to space exploitation,” would, the State Department suggested, “encourage unilateral program and very nationalistic tendencies and suspicion of U. S. which could stimulate decision by the government of Japan over next decades to exercise its nuclear option.”5

These views were part and parcel of an evolving quest for collaboration with Japan, notwithstanding Kaneshige’s gloomy prognosis in summer 1966. An offi­cial visit by Prime Minister Sato in November 1967 provided the occasion for a collective reaffirmation of US policy by officials in NASA, the Department of Defense, the Office of Munitions Control, and the science team in the State Department. A white paper prepared in anticipation of the state visit expressed continuing concern regarding Japan’s determination to pursue an independent peaceful space program. It reiterated the advantages to Tokyo of working with the United States: savings in time and money, increased prestige in Asia vis-a-vis the People’s Republic of China. And it suggested that Sato’s visit provided an appropriate occasion for the United States to once again express its “willingness to broaden space cooperation with Japan.” There were, though, a couple of areas in which that cooperation would have to be qualified: the launching of comsats, which had to satisfy Intelsat’s conditions (see chapter 5), and “assistance in the development of Japanese launch vehicles including guidance systems [that was] limited by our policy against the proliferation of nuclear weapon systems.”6 In these areas, requests for technological support would be handled on a case-by­case basis: there could be no blanket technology transfer agreement.

On November 15, 1967, President Johnson and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato agreed that the two countries should look more closely into the possibilities for space cooperation. Possible avenues for collaboration were then reviewed thoroughly in Washington. A policy statement outlining the nature of prospective cooperation with the Japanese was agreed by State, NASA, Defense, ACDA, and the White House. It was forwarded to the US ambassador in Tokyo, U. Alexis Johnson, on January 5, 1968, with authorization to inform the Japanese government of the readiness to negotiate a space agreement. The offer was conveyed to the prime minister shortly thereafter, and 18 months later, on July 31, 1969, an exchange of diplomatic notes confirmed the terms of a new US-Japanese collaborative space project. It explicitly narrowed the scope of collaboration to technology and equip­ment for the peaceful development of launch vehicles and communications and other satellites.7

This arrangement deviated significantly from the white paper drafted in inter­agency discussions before Sato’s visit. Not only did it identify as core items for collaboration just those items that had been singled out as particularly sensitive— launchers and comsats—, but it also made no explicit mention that technology sharing in these two areas would be decided on a case-by-case basis, as NASA had insisted.

Privileging launchers was defended in general terms by the State Department as essential to curbing potential militaristic ambitions in Japan. As one official put it to the secretary of state, “[T]o deny cooperation in unclassified technology oth­erwise available to European partners would stimulate suspicion of U. S. motives, encourage nationalistic tendencies and could well contribute to an eventual deci­sion by the Japanese government to exercise its option to develop a military deliv­ery capability.”8 U. Alexis Johnson himself later reiterated the argument in his biography: as he put it there, “since space launchers always presented the possibil­ity of conversion to military rockets [. . .] we would be much smarter to be in bed with Japan from the outset rather than have it develop a new rocket of which we would be ignorant.”9 The deal would also “benefit U. S. business interests and help with our balance of payments.”10 Johnson stressed this aspect in response to the criticism that the United States was “gratuitously providing the Japanese with scientific and technological data of inestimable worth”: US industries who were “interested in this matter estimate that the return to them and our balance of payments should amount to a total of approximately $350 million by 1975.”11 This was a not insignificant sum when “by the mid-1960s the trade balance was beginning to swing in Japan’s direction as its manufactured goods, especially elec­tronics, began to make big inroads in the wide-open American market.”12 There was, then, more than one good reason for agreeing to share launcher technology with Japan: it was quite another matter, of course, to explicitly encourage Japan to develop with American help the most sensitive components that had been identi­fied as candidates for technology sharing, namely, launchers and comsats.

Needless to say, neither NASA nor the Department of Defense were happy with this arrangement: Frutkin in particular “resisted it as strongly as I could [. . .].”13 The State Department was able to override their objections by arguing that it was in the overall foreign policy and national security interests to foster closer collabora­tion with Japan in these crucial technological sectors. They did have to make one concession to their opponents however: the US government undertook “to per­mit United States industry to provide to the Japanese Government or to Japanese industry under contract to the Japanese government” access to the unclassified technologies mentioned earlier.14 By identifying US industry as the agent of the exchange Washington effectively construed the agreement as a commercial arrange­ment between the Japanese and the manufacturer of the Thor-Delta rocket.

There is no doubt that U. Alexis Johnson, ambassador to Japan from 1966 to 1969, and then undersecretary of state for political affairs from 1969 to 1973, was the driving force behind the agreement. Frutkin was explicit about this in interviews:

See, the prime advocate of a generous hand to Japan on a vehicle was Alex Johnson.

He worked awfully hard for that in all the positions he had, first as ambassador to Japan, then in State, and then this ultra special committee dealing with intel­ligence and so on. I felt it was wrong for policy to be pushed by a single person. He was very much interested in the Japanese interest in launch vehicle technology and tried to encourage us to be more forthcoming to them. Now, in my opinion, he should have known a lot better, because he was a member of the little intelligence group, an interagency intelligence group, that would have known far better than I did that the U. S. was not interested in Japanese access to launch vehicle technology [at that time].15

Johnson himself was unambiguous about the importance he attached to the agree­ment. Writing to Robert Seamans, the secretary of the Air Force, in 1969, he emphasized that “[t]his is a project close to my heart on which I did the original spade work with Prime Minister Sato.” He added that, “on balance, I think it is very much in our national interest to proceed with the project as rapidly as we can.”16 U. Alexis Johnson made an immense contribution to the growth ofUS-Japanese relations during his tenure first as ambassador to Tokyo and then as undersec­retary of state for political affairs. In both positions, he played a crucial role in facilitating the return of Okinawa to Japan and in space cooperation. In an inter­view with John Logsdon he stated that “he had always wanted to find a way to counter balance what he perceived as a pro-European bias in U. S. foreign pol­icy by increasing U. S. interactions with Asia, and particularly Japan.”17 Johnson chaired the Space Council subcommittee on international cooperation between May and October 1966 and thus was quite familiar with the discussion regarding increased US-Japan space interactions. When Johnson was named US ambassador to Japan in October 1966, he carried with him the desire to use space coopera­tion as one way of strengthening the overall Japanese-US alliance. He was sensi­tive to Japanese “national pride” and its “technology capacity” to develop launch vehicles and satellites. Seeing the earlier overtures toward space cooperation from the United States to be ill-defined—“we had offered several times in general terms to cooperate with Japan but never spelled out what we meant”—he began work­ing closely with Washington for a “specific proposal” to engage with the Japanese space effort.18 During the spring and summer of 1969 in anticipation of the July 1969 exchange of notes, Johnson worked hard for such a specific agreement with the Japanese, something that would entice them and give substance to the more general proposals that had been in the air since 1965. Seeing no progress made by the staff of the undersecretary’s committee, he emphatically stated that

[t]he present course can have no result other than the Japanese going it alone or forcing them into the arms of the Europeans. As you know, I deeply feel that this would be contrary to every interest that we have with the Japanese; also, it is obvi­ously urgent that this matter be resolved before the Cabinet Committee meeting in Tokyo at the end of July.19

In the event it was resolved to his satisfaction, and thanks to his passionate and determined pursuit of his objective. Indeed as Johnson explained in an oral interview in 1975, he was a “great believer in getting things done, going to the core of the problem. It’s been very, very rare in my career that I ever write a memorandum to anybody or do a ‘think-piece’ about something. [. . .] I like to sit down and write the telegram” giving instructions to the ambassador in the field.20 This close identification with the project and his determination to “write the telegram” rather than draft policy papers surely helps to account for

Johnson’s tenacity in bringing the US-Japan agreement to fruition on terms that strongly favored Tokyo, against strong opposition in other arms of the adminis­tration, and in NASA in particular.