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wvbraun
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Some details have emerged:<br /><br /><i>The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the Japanese government is considering a rather bold new space policy for that country that would include manned space flights. (Perhaps the headline "JAXA seeks to bodily go" is really a pun rather than a typo. Then again, maybe not.) The plan, scheduled for approval later this month, calls for modifying the H-2A Transfer Vehicle (HTV) originally developed as an unmanned cargo spacecraft for the ISS into a manned vehicle ready for crewed missions by around 2015. The plan also calls for JAXA "to secure superiority in the use of the moon's resources" in advance of participation in an international lunar base by 2025.<br /><br />The plan does not come cheap: the first ten years of the program would cost Japan 250-280 billion yen ($2.4-2.7 billion) a year, compared to JAXA's current annual budget of 180 billion yen ($1.7 billion). However, many Japanese have felt that their space program has fallen behind China's: the failure of an H-2A less than two months after China launched its first manned mission in October 2003 was a rather pointed demonstration of those worries. If a new "space race" does develop, it will not be between the US and China, but between China and Japan (and perhaps India and South Korea as well.)</i>