Japanese suborbital RLV project

gotta love the cheerful music and yellow helmets in that video :)

pity that in the century of information technology, this stuff isnt easily available in english.

Posted by reader at 06/06/07 07:04:46

Only slightly off topic, try watching a few episodes of "rocket girls", Hopefully a subtitled version, Youtube or bittorrents (best). A space program on a small vehicle. Uplifting !

Posted by erps member at 06/06/07 10:15:00

Rocket Girls clearly takes hints from this development, just look at the shape of Tanpopo and Coconut. Also, they have tie-ins with JAXA and actual Japanese rocket girls which I'm sure would be interesting to Clark. The WOWOW site has a direct link to this:
http://www.mono.akita-u.ac....

The rocket-girl.jp has a section dedicated to meeting with a JAXA astronaut (I didn't read it closely, but I presume she flew on Shuttle), who also appears in the show -- in the TV-inside-TV broadcast in ep.7.

In general, watching Rocket Girls is very much like reading The Rocket Company. It gives the same kind of vibe. The difference is, Rocket Girls depicts a lot of things which are outright inplausible or nonsensual. The hybrid core stage, 1.5STO design, movable OMS engine going straight through the heat shield, and so on and so forth. After all, Rocket Girls has to make profit, and The Rocket Company... Actually I don't know how it's financed.

But yes, RG obviously tries to be more oriented to realistic hardware than even PlaneteS, and PlaneteS was reviewed on TSR. I think RG deserves attention from American alt.space.

BTW, if you look to Rocket Girls on YouTube, the top hit is the trailer OP, which, I think does not give the right impression... and does not show a lot of the hardware :-) Go for this instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Unfortunately, the odd separation sequence, with interstage shed from the core stage, is not shown. But you can see lots of interesting features, such as their concept of abort tower, vehicle sitting in VAB (they integrate vertically), etc.

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at 06/06/07 13:03:38

wow, i had no idea such a show existed. I think there is a sore lack of near-realistic near-future space-themed fiction and utopistic stuff like StarTrek et al has done more harm than good to (western) public perception of space.

RG looks like something i'd watch, is it translated anywhere ?

Posted by reader at 06/06/07 14:17:47

Okay, to bring the comments back on target... ;)

All I can say is:
Finally! It's about time there was a follow up to Inatanis' Small RVT project.

Posted by Michael Antoniewicz II at 06/06/07 16:13:24

I've always thought it strange that Japan, of all countries, never got around to an independent manned space program. They certainly have a cultural interest, and the expertise and money to make it happen, so why it never happened is anyone's guess. Here's hoping to see them Out There in the near future in something as cool as the cars they make.

Posted by Nippophile at 06/06/07 16:30:58

Go to Animesuki, it has an anchor entry #1002 for RG. Translated by Rakuda, hardsubs. Pretty decent. I won't be linking, not knowing Clark's disposition, but it's easy to find. My conscience is quite clear about this though, I'm getting R2 DVDs once they're available.

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at 06/06/07 16:31:08

A realistic space exploration show would be too "cerebral" for TV companies to tolerate, let alone fund. Even the Scifi-Channel is guilty of this, though they feebly try to make up for it on occasion with clever scripts. On its original run, Firefly was treated like some kind of dry astrophysics textbook for merely not having sounds in space. People are idiots, and don't want to see fascinating, exotic things. They just want to see the same stupid crap over, and over, and over, and never changing. If you're not like that, you're a dangerous subversive to be feared and watched, and anime is pretty much the only game in town for people like that. It's a lot easier to please idiots than visionaries, and corporations don't want to spend their money throwing the dice on what real minds will find interesting. They spent tens of millions making every inane, vacuous episode of Friends, and couldn't scrounge loose change out of the casting couch to fund Firefly. Bastardi!

Posted by The Puritan at 06/06/07 18:30:12

no, you got me wrong. i didnt mean a "nasa TV" show which would bore everyone to death.
i was thinking more of a "space western" but in sort of near-term future, with concepts that appear feasible today. ( alleviating worlds energy crisis with solar power sats, heading out to mine the asteroids for the first time, establishing a first permanent settlement off this rock, construction of the L1 stations and so on )

you can pull plenty of drama with settings like these. the most important part however, make your heroes motives authentic, i.e. dont make them work for government, but for their own motives ( independence, freedom, profit, curiosity and so on )

"westerns" were popular. shows that somewhat revolve around fine technical details ( CSI ) were popular. its entirely possible to combine near-future space tech with enough drama and good scripts.
I mean, even Star Trek is still popular, but why do they have to go warp drives, star systems, and government employees in tightsuits ? substitute the above for RLVs and nuclear propulsion, inner solar system bodies and mavericks in jeans instead and we'd be much better off.

Posted by reader at 06/06/07 23:08:11

Actually, reader, I think you could do it even more near term than that. I had a thought for a near term television show about private space flight - I posted it over at spacefellowship - http://spacefellowship.com/... - this is the link if anyone is interested

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 06/07/07 00:05:34

why limit yourself ( and also audience's awareness ) ?
You could start off with stuff about building RLVs and so on, but expand on it quickly to include prospects that could capture public imagination in a more big way. Sort of like "trojan horse". give them entertainment and drama, while making them aware of concepts like affordable space flight for everyone, clean solar energy from space, precious metals and other resources from space, dangerous and polluting industries moved off earth, expanding human population to other planets and so on.

The possibilities for interesting story lines, character developments, spinoffs and so on are endless. take the best drama from westerns or "traditional scifi", thrillers, criminal mysteries and so on, and bring them into near-future human solar system expansion setting.
make it a rule to always point out rationale of this or that venture in space, why is it done and who benefits ( i.e. why would one go to mine asteroids or build SPS or orbiting O'Neill colonies or lunar fuel depot and so on )

as usually done in entertainment, you can modify reality a bit, you dont have to calculate ROI of your fictional investors, you dont have to calculate exact Delta-V or launch cost numbers or orbital alignment dates. in other words, have fun but keep it believable.
I mean, you can modify settings back on earth ( hey, its future after all ) to make stuff more believable. Make earths energy needs much more dire than they are right now, make pollution levels much more worse and ban certain industries altogether ( Al Gore is doing the advertising on this anyway, so everyone is going to believe this ), make demand for certain precious metals go through the roof

you can always throw in rich celebrities who nobody likes, but they bought their ticket and they want their lunar tour, you can always have a bunch of weird people trying to establish a new country on Mars and so on .. the possibilities are endless.

I mean, done right, this could sell bundles. why do another cop show, hospital show, another scripted-reality show ? its been done a hundred times, everyone is getting bored of these. instead, take a new setting, i.e. space, and repackage the same story lines and drama in a new exciting setting and sell them the same old drama and stories all over again :)

Oh, and keep NASA out of it, maybe only as a bunch of athritic antagonist bueraucrats.

Posted by reader at 06/07/07 02:00:58

reader, the problem of trying to expand it beyond that is time - You wanna do a show that focuses on the development of the sub-orbital industry, followed shortly thereafter by the orbital industyr - no problem. I can easily see that happening in a short enough time frame as to make sense for a television show.

But suggesting that with that short time frame we'll be mining asteriods, well, it'd be hard even for someone like me to see it happening (and I argue that we've started colonization already)

I guess what I am saying is, how much into the future do you want the timeline of your show to be? My idea would be make it as close to present day with present day tech as possible - that means focusing on the develoment of sub-orbital vehicles, and orbital vehicles (and there are plenty of stories you can do based on that).

You can't run a television that has a timeframe of 40 years from its pilot to its final show unless its a time traveling show.

I hope that makes sense. While I think either show would be good, I do prefer mine, largely because
1 - its Mine :D
2 - I would want something that can be seen really really soon.

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 06/07/07 08:05:28

::You can't run a television that has a timeframe of 40 years

Hey, they did a "Day after tomorrow" where the world froze over in literally days :)
You could do time skips ala "five years later" between seasons or even series and so on. Also, there are definitely shows where the events are not continuous, just separate stories tied in in one setting and background of events. You could do a story from here, story from there ( i think this would perhaps be the best model of all, to include as many interesting developments as possible and as varied story lines as possible )

all in all, i wouldnt mind either variant, just give me something believable without stupid tightsuits and warp drives and *SA logos.
hey, all it "business fiction" not "science fiction" :)

Posted by reader at 06/07/07 10:07:33

::You could do a story from here, story from there

Remember Donovan and Powell from Asimovs first robot stories ? These guys _definitely_ got around in solar system :P

Posted by reader at 06/07/07 10:08:43

Doing a series *too* near term has been tried:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

...and it tends to put a hard limit on what sort of stories you can do, if you don't at least have relatively easy access to LEO, the Moon, and maybe the nearer planets.

Posted by Frank Glover at 06/07/07 14:20:09

the Cape has "NASA" written all over it. Thats its first mistake. These four letters will not capture public imagination in this century. Thats just the first of its faults. Instead, you could just watch NASA TV and yawn your head off.
Like i said, you need characters driven by their own motives, not ordered around for some unclear goal by their bosses in this or that government agency.

Posted by reader at 06/07/07 14:47:12

Hadn't even *heard* of The Cape, and Amazon doesn't seem to list it. Oh well...

Think I've mentioned 'StarCops' (British 1980's TV series) before as an example of near-future space SF:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sta...

If anyone wants to do a NewSpace animated series (kinda a western version of Rocket Girls) I know someone who'd be happy to do the character designs and backgrounds for it :-) He drew this for me, and it's now a 'FlyMyStuff' payload on Bigelow's Genesis II:-

http://www.rocketeers.co.uk...

Posted by Stellvia at 06/07/07 15:39:50

How about this for a TV show:

An American software billionaire, a flashy British tycoon, an Australian media mogul, a Saudi prince, a Russian oligarch, and a Japanese electronics guru, each worth more than $20 billion, agree to a wager whereby each will race the others to fund a manned Mars mission with certain fixed objectives. The effort that achieves a manned landing, accomplishes a given proportion of the mission objectives, and returns the crew safely will win fully half the money and assets generated by each of the other efforts.

Each of the billionaires has a distinct personality, distinct cultural and political context, and must deal with a unique set of problems in addition to the common set of technical challenges:

The American is a bit of a nerd, but with a powerful mind for business and technology--an exaggerated composite of Musk, Bezos, Carmack, and Bill Gates. His unique challenge (unique because it will be focused on) will be overcoming skepticism and/or active hostility from established space firms, the military, the FAA, and NASA, and dealing with arcane issues like ITAR.

The Brit is a consummate adventurer and character, eccentric but never farcical, and always handy with a witty remark and a sardonic smile. If it isn't obvious already, he's a knockoff of Richard Branson. His main antagonists will be the paparazzi, and an increasingly hysterical environmental movement that sees the marginal emissions from his program as a grievous threat.

The Australian media mogul is a sleazy, bullying blowhard with no morals, values, or even aesthetic taste, and doesn't care about anyone. He is based on Rupert Murdoch. His challenge will be to employ his media empire to advance his effort, slandering the other participants in the race and manipulating Australian elections to provide a more favorable regulatory environment. One story arc could tie his slander campaign to paparazzi activities against the Brit. The Australian would be the irredeemable, hated villain in the race.

The Saudi prince is one of several vying for the throne of his ailing father. He is an Arabist who wants to see his culture triumph over the West, but has an ambiguous relationship with Islam. His challenges are to deal with the machinations of his brothers, Iranian and Israeli intrigues, American oil companies who support one of his brothers, and terrorist plots against him. His character would be an amalgam of various royals and oil emirs in the region, and would rip off certain elements from "Syriana."

The Russian oligarch would be a Slavic version of Bugsy Siegel--a gangster with a vision. Crazy when provoked, but he has a wild sense of humor, deeply loves each and every one of his several girlfriends, and is fanatically devoted to his children--but his wife is a cold-hearted you-know-what who wants him dead. His challenges are to survive the machinations of other Russian gangsters and his wife's conniving, overcome or harness omnipresent corruption, avoid being shut down by the Russian government on behalf of partially state-owned space interests, etc etc. He's thoroughly unscrupulous, but the audience cheers for him nonetheless--an anti-hero / redeemable villain.

The Japanese electronics guru has a profoundly deep mind, thinks far ahead of others, and he has abiding interests in artificial intelligence and robotics. His challenges are to overcome a stodgy Japanese establishment that looks down on risk-taking, deal with yakuza contracting monopolies, and keep his efforts and his person safe from the Chinese agents who are after him for some reason.

In addition to the stated challenges, they will have to overcome all the usual vicissitudes--natural disasters, economic crashes in key sectors, personal tragedies, political sea changes, personal rivalries, etc. And, of course, the scientific and technological progress would underpin all of it, as well as setbacks in same due to errors, accidents, sabotage, poor planning, etc.

Eventually some of the players would hit catastrophic brick walls financially, technologically, or in other ways, and would be unable to continue. But they would salvage their investment and still have a chance to make money by reinvesting their assets in players still in the game, in return for a cut of the winnings. In this way, progress isn't wasted, and characters who've been developed over time aren't simply discarded.

Meanwhile, NASA, ESA, and the Chinese compete with each other, and the show could highlight (perhaps with comic effect) the differences between the government programs and those party to the wager.

It could be a modern-day version of the great Victorian adventure stories. Of course this is not a realistic premise, but it could be a very exciting and engrossing way to showcase the technical and business aspects.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 06/08/07 12:04:56

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