AH Challenge: Have Japan be the third nation to send a person to space

[Anime Ninja]

As the title says. Have Japan as a 3rd nation before China to send someone in orbit.

Bonus points, what they are using is still in use today after the shuttle was taken offline.

 

[Puzzle]

So they need a program completed by 2003 if there aren't any butterflies. I'm pretty ignorant of Japan in general but one issue is that rockets are pretty much the definition of dual use technology. If you can get a man into space you can get a missile down. Would they even be able to get funding for a manned space program? Their first astronaut didn't even go up until 1990, as a major industrialized country it seems like if they really cared they could have at least beaten Saudi Arabia in hitching a ride on the shuttle.

 

[Michel Van]

The original NASDA plans in 1980s were ambitious
construction of H-II rocket, entirely of Japanese parts (the older were License US Delta rocket)
And R&D the manned Spacecraft HOPE, a smaller glider similar to European Hermes.

But things went wrong in R&D on H-2 rocket
The LE-7 engine was model after Space Shuttle SSME engine,
and Japanese had all kind of problems with this High pressure rocket engine
Two LE-7 explode on Teststand, delay the H-2 first launch to 1994 and cost overrun
and the first series of H-2 launch show the rocket was to complex and expensive
The last H-II launch in 1999, was disaster as LE-7 Engines failed, NASDA stop the H-II program and overwork it
in 2001 the simpler cheaper H-IIA was launch with success.

HOPE had similar problem
the vital HYFLEX test 1996 ended in Disaster, after successful flight it land in ocean and sink to ground
and it came worst, Japan had a economic crisis from 1995 to 2007, the government had to make budget cuts also in NASDA
A re-evaluation of the entire space program followed in 1998.
then in 2003 in Reform process and new space program, the organization NASDA, NAL, ISAS were put together under name JAXA
again JAXA made re-evaluation of all there program and terminate finally HOPE and other programs

So how to change that ?
first make the H-2 not so ambitious, no High pressure rocket engine like SSME, but simpler like European Vulcan engine of Ariane 5.
it would be easy to handle and cheaper to Launch.
Instead of expensive Space Glider, a space Capsule would do same job cheaper !
ironic there were in 2001 the Fuji proposal for space Capsule, refused by NASDA who wanted HOPE
while JAXA want to build it, but get not money by government

by the way
Anime Ninja, First Japanese in Orbit, include that a Japanese High school girl ?

 

[Namayan]

Your definition doesn't require it to be done solely. Since you can go to Space with someones help just like getting the nukes faster with some other nations help.

With that being said, there is beyond 3 nationalities who have gone through Space in orbit, with the right PoD, which can qualify a Japanese going to Space being the third nationality.

 

[GarethC]

Well, how about if France doesn't fall, the European war ends in mid-1941 with German surrender, and there is no Pacific war as such?

With a partitioned China into KMT, CCP, and Manchukuo in about 1950?

The USSR hasn't lost 20 million casualties in WWII. The US hasn't had its economic boom from being the only unbombed economy in the first world. Britain and France still have quite a lot of empire left. And Japan retains the economies of Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria to invest in as the only hope of retaining some form of parity with the other great powers.

How much sooner can we get manned orbiters with a much smaller and more limite WWII? And can Japan steal a march on the other powers and get to space before them?

 

[Michel Van]

Well, how about if France doesn't fall, the European war ends in mid-1941 with German surrender, and there is no Pacific war as such?

With a partitioned China into KMT, CCP, and Manchukuo in about 1950?

The USSR hasn't lost 20 million casualties in WWII. The US hasn't had its economic boom from being the only unbombed economy in the first world. Britain and France still have quite a lot of empire left. And Japan retains the economies of Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria to invest in as the only hope of retaining some form of parity with the other great powers.

How much sooner can we get manned orbiters with a much smaller and more limite WWII? And can Japan steal a march on the other powers and get to space before them?

Why to make it so complicated ?

The third nation who launch a man in space with own rocket, was China with Yang Liwei in Shenzhou 5, on October 15, 2003.
so Japan had all time from 1980s to build new rocket and launch a Manned Capsule into space in 1992/94,

1. build simpler and cheaper H-II rocket
2. build A Space capsule instead of Glider.

it would have survived the 1998 and 2003 re-evaluation of Japanese Space Program.

although
Toyohiro Akiyama would still be first Japanese in Space
he is a Japanese TV journalist who flight to the Mir space station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 1990.

For manned Japanese Program NASDA had selected first in 1985:
Takao Doi, a aerospace engineer (flew on Shuttle Missions STS-87, STS-123 to ISS)
Mamoru Mohri, a scientist (flew Shuttle Missions STS-47, STS-99 as Mission specialist)
Chiaki Mukai, a doctor (flew Shuttle Missions STS-65, STS-95, first Japanese woman in space)

They would be in prime crew for first Japanese launch manned Mission.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The Japanese H-I rocket could put 3 tonnes into LEO. A Mercury capsule weighs 1.4 tonnes

Even a Gemini is less than 4 tonnes.

An HI could easily orbit a single person capsule, and it wouldn't be horribly difficult to upgrade it to handle a 2 person capsule.

Don't need to wait until the H-II comes along.

 

[Pipcard]

I'll be glad if I ever see a manned launch using a Japanese spacecraft and launch vehicle. The only country (afaik) to have an entire series depicting what it's like to become an astronaut deserves a better space program.

by the way
Anime Ninja, First Japanese in Orbit, include that a Japanese High school girl ?

The Japanese H-I rocket could put 3 tonnes into LEO. A Mercury capsule weighs 1.4 tonnes

The "Tanpopo" capsule in Rocket Girls was basically like a Mercury spacecraft (but with a retractable orbital engine)

(fan art from here)

 

[mlp]

Just go all South Korea about it and borrow maybe Russia's rockets for the first rocket engines or something. That'll probably reduce cost problems if there were any.

 

[Pipcard]

Just go all South Korea about it and borrow maybe Russia's rockets for the first rocket engines or something. That'll probably reduce cost problems if there were any.

Japan's first liquid-fuel launchers (N-I, N-II, H-I) were licensed versions of the American Delta rocket (with Japanese upper stages for the N-I and H-I). H-II was the first liquid-fuel launch vehicle to be indigenously developed.

 

[mlp]

Japan's first liquid-fuel launchers (N-I, N-II, H-I) were licensed versions of the American Delta rocket (with Japanese upper stages for the N-I and H-I). H-II was the first liquid-fuel launch vehicle to be indigenously developed.

I frankly do not know what that signifies. If Japan has capabilities to launch manned spacecraft then the main question would be why they didn't IOTL. And the answer to that may lie in budget limits.

 

[Pipcard]

I frankly do not know what that signifies. If Japan has capabilities to launch manned spacecraft then the main question would be why they didn't IOTL. And the answer to that may lie in budget limits.

You mentioned the possibility of Japan borrowing another country's launch vehicle technology. I responded with the fact that Japan was actually using borrowed American launcher technology in the 1970s and 1980s.

And of course it's about budget limits/the Lost Decade. As Michel Van said earlier in this thread, if Japan in the bubble days hadn't tried to be too ambitious with the development of the HOPE spaceplane (mini-shuttle), they could've had a cheaper/quicker-to-develop space capsule.

 

[mlp]

You mentioned the possibility of Japan borrowing another country's launch vehicle technology. I responded with the fact that Japan was actually using borrowed American launcher technology in the 1970s and 1980s.

And of course it's about budget limits/the Lost Decade. As Michel Van said earlier in this thread, if Japan in the bubble days hadn't tried to be too ambitious with the development of the HOPE spaceplane (mini-shuttle), they could've had a cheaper/quicker-to-develop space capsule.

Now I get it, I actually didn't get it back then. For South Korea they literally got a rocket from Russia, while for Japan they built their own(under license I guess); so it'd be a different situation.
What if they didn't try to license-produce it but just try to buy it without the tech, in turn getting a bigger rocket from the start? Perhaps they could try following the Mercury design and launch someone into space by the 70s or 80s?