HOME | DD

Description
In the 1980s, as the American NASA proposed the International Space Station (ISS), Japan decided to contribute in two ways: building the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo) and developing a Japanese spaceplane. The National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) collaborated on Hope, which was initially designed as a four-man, 22-ton shuttle. NASDA and NAL decided to build a small-scale sub-orbital prototype, Hope-X, which was redesigned as an unmanned ISS supply ship in the 1990s. Kawasaki built a 1/4 scale wind tunnel test model of Hope-X, which resembled the old Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar lifting body spaceplane, but the entire Hope project was cancelled in 2003 when problems with the H-2 rocket, the Japanese economy, and the ISS construction schedule became insurmountable. The Japanese government merged NASDA and NAL into the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which has sent up the Kibo module and (as of July 2016) two astronauts. This model of Hope-X at the Kakamigahara Aerospace Science Museum in Gifu Prefecture shows how close Japan came to matching Russia and America in having its own manned spacecraft.

Description
In the 1980s, as the American NASA proposed the International Space Station (ISS), Japan decided to contribute in two ways: building the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo) and developing a Japanese spaceplane. The National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) collaborated on Hope, which was initially designed as a four-man, 22-ton shuttle. NASDA and NAL decided to build a small-scale sub-orbital prototype, Hope-X, which was redesigned as an unmanned ISS supply ship in the 1990s. Kawasaki built a 1/4 scale wind tunnel test model of Hope-X, which resembled the old Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar lifting body spaceplane, but the entire Hope project was cancelled in 2003 when problems with the H-2 rocket, the Japanese economy, and the ISS construction schedule became insurmountable. The Japanese government merged NASDA and NAL into the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which has sent up the Kibo module and (as of July 2016) two astronauts. This model of Hope-X at the Kakamigahara Aerospace Science Museum in Gifu Prefecture shows how close Japan came to matching Russia and America in having its own manned spacecraft.