Rocket Science Ain't Rocket Science
The old adage "it's not exactly rocket science" implies that Rocket Science is difficult. Well, it's Ballistics so it's not like the science of it is much harder than High School Physics. Even the engineering is something quite comprehensible. So why is rocketry so hard? It turns out that launching rockets is difficult because so many things have to be coordinatedd perfectly; so System Engineering as it is known is the bit in rocketry that is truly difficult.
Here's an example. The main engines of the HII-A rocket consists of Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen engines. The explosive power is derived from controlled combustion of the LOX and Liquid H2, and this much is high school chemistry. The actual appartus of making and storing LOX and Liquid Hydrogen are also old chemical engineering problems. The fuels must be refrigerated to -150degrees celsius to keep them liquid.
The thing is, with rockets, the super-cooled liquid fuel has to be delivered to the fuel tank of the rocket on the launch pad without leaks and breakages. Organising it so that the rocket arrives for the launch window in time with the fuel in place to be poured in to the rocket's fuel tank takes a chunk of system enginnering, and in turn this is why you build a space center.
Tanegashima Space Center
The most remarkable aspect of the Tanegashima Space Center is how far from the centre of civilization it feels. If not for the constant references to the space center and its rockets, the township of Minamitane is one of the furthest outposts from Tokyo. The place is historic in its own way, forever linked ballistics as the place where the Portuguese brought the musket to Japan; and it is here ballistics gets a second breath in the story of Tanegashima.
Tanegashima Space Center houses the facilities where they do the final assembly of the rocket; do the launch; but also test engines and assemble satellites. It's a big sprawling complex built on one of the most beautiful shorelines.
Surprisingly, the staff at Tanegashima are young. If you're used to meeting middle-aged men running institutions in Japan, you will get a rude shock here. There are many young men and women involved in important tasks; they're not window dressing. They have their degrees in rocket engineering and they are filled with hopes and ambition for the space program. One gets a sense of dynamism and activity quite unlike the stodgy bureaucratic feeling one gets from dealing with the main JAXA office. These operatives mean business. At one point I felt I missed my calling - I should've done rocket engineering.
What Is JAXA Like?
This is strictly my experience and therefore my own observation:
JAXA as an organisation is still very young.
You talk to the PR department and mostly they are enthisastic. You talk to the people on the ground actually running the rocket systems and they are incredibly enthusaistic. Even the big boss of JAXA has a long term vision as to where Japan's space program should be going.
Alas the thing that lets JAXA down is the level of management that is still a holdover from NASDA. It's really hard to get them to understand how important Public Relations can be for a space program. So even with the help of the PR department, you end up hitting strange, arbitrary walls that are set up by people who would rather keep things simple in their own minds by saying 'no'. Unfortunately, that's not good enough when Discovery Channel is spending big bucks to give you a 50minute commercial of your wares.
Some departments are very happy to show you what they are worrking on> Others say irrational things like "we can show it to you but you can't shoot it."
Well, what's the good of that? It's that kind of weird response that makes you think, "how seriously do they take the media?"
Indeed , it's symptomatic of large organisations in Japan that they do really bad PR, so JAXA are not an exception when their PR department can't convince their department heads to show off their wares. While I sympathise with the actual PR people I encountered the long term outlook on it is not very encouraging. If anything, it seemed they were drawing the wrong lessons and conclusions.
Other than that, JAXA is a young, dynamic organisation doing amazing things.
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