<div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">"A booming </span><span lang="en-US">space industry </span><span lang="en-GB">is</span><span lang="en-US"> making</span><span lang="en-GB"> it</span><span lang="en-US"> easier</span><span lang="en-GB"> than ever</span><span lang="en-US"> to get into orbit, but Japan is b</span><span lang="en-US">ett</span><span lang="en-US">ing </span><span lang="en-GB">that </span><span lang="en-US">it could revolutioni</span><span lang="en-GB">z</span><span lang="en-US">e terrestrial travel, too. </span><span lang="en-US">The country’s</span> <span lang="en-US">science ministry </span><span lang="en-GB">has unveiled a plan</span><span lang="en-US"> to develop </span><span lang="en-US">intercontinental passenger spaceships</span><span lang="en-US"> by the early 2040s.</span></font>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">The idea of using spaceships to
travel from one point on the Earth’s surface to another has been around
since at least the 1960s, but the cost </span><span lang="en-GB">and</span><span lang="en-GB"> complexity of the idea ha</span><span lang="en-GB">ve</span><span lang="en-GB"> meant it’s been little more than a pipe dream.</span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">In principle, the approach isn’t that
different from the one used by intercontinental ballistic missiles. A
rocket is used to blast the payload, be </span><span lang="en-GB">it</span><span lang="en-GB">
a nuclear weapon or a passenger spaceship, on a big looping trajectory
into space before re-entering the atmosphere on the other side of the
planet.</span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">The approach could make it possible to travel between continents in under an hour, and now Japan has </span><span lang="en-GB"><a href="https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210515/p2a/00m/0sc/013000c?mc_cid=67a7de0a4f&mc_eid=17e73a80fc">outlined it</a><a href="https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210515/p2a/00m/0sc/013000c?mc_cid=67a7de0a4f&mc_eid=17e73a80fc">s vision</a></span><span lang="en-GB"> for how to make the idea a reality. In a roadmap </span><span lang="en-GB">unveiled</span><span lang="en-GB"> at an expert panel </span><span lang="en-GB">earlier this</span><span lang="en-GB">
month, its science ministry put forward a two-phase plan it predicts
could support a 5 trillion yen ($46 billion) market for spaceships
departing from and arriving in Japan.</span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">Local reports on the strategy are
light on detail, but it seems to rely on the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA) achieving dramatic reductions in the cost of launching
vehicles into space.</span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">The country’s next-generation <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/projects/rockets/h3/">H3 rocket</a>, which is due for a maiden flight this year, costs roughly </span><span lang="en-GB">five</span><span lang="en-GB"> billion yen, and the roadmap predicts that tactics like <a href="https://singularityhub.com/2021/05/17/spacex-milestone-signals-reusable-rockets-are-becoming-mainstream/">reusing rocket parts</a> will allow them to halve that cost by 2030, and get it down to as low as 10 percent by the early 2040s.</span></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="4"><span lang="en-GB">They will then rely on private
companies to develop transport vehicles that can carry passengers. They
envisage two different kinds of spaceships: a spaceplane similar to the
space shuttle that can land on a runway like a normal aircraft, and one
that lands vertically like <a href="https://singularityhub.com/tag/spacex/">SpaceX</a>’s reusable rockets."</span></font></p>
</div><div><font size="4"><a href="https://singularityhub.com/2021/05/30/japan-wants-to-build-intercontinental-passenger-spaceships-by-the-early-2040s/">https://singularityhub.com/2021/05/30/japan-wants-to-build-intercontinental-passenger-spaceships-by-the-early-2040s/</a></font></div></div>