Breaking the glass ceiling in space

December 09, 2017 06:42 pm | Updated 06:53 pm IST

In this April 5, 2010 photo, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Naoko Yamazaki waves as she and her colleague walk out of the operations and checkout building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

In this April 5, 2010 photo, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Naoko Yamazaki waves as she and her colleague walk out of the operations and checkout building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

Naoko Yamazaki was always going to reach for the stars. As a little girl in the 1970s, Ms. Yamazaki used to sit on her living room couch in Japan’s Chiba prefecture, not far from Tokyo, and watch science fiction anime, dreaming about space. Over three decades later, on April 5, 2010, she donned an orange space suit and boarded the space shuttle, Discovery, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Eight and a half minutes later she had breached the “final frontier”, her childhood dream became a reality.

Ms. Yamazaki became the second Japanese woman (and 54th woman globally) to have flown to space. To date, 60 women have accomplished this feat, some 10% of the total number of astronauts. Ms. Yamazaki spent 15 days in space, operating the robotic arm of the International Space Shuttle (ISS). She marvelled at how beautiful the Earth was. “I also felt very familiar, as though I was home. And I realised that space is actually everyone’s hometown,” she said.

The reality of the human relationship with space is arguably less edifying. The preponderance of rich, Western countries in space and the dominance of male astronauts has led critics to point out that the “human exploration” of space is, in fact, white, male colonisation. Ms. Yamazaki, however, believes that space exploration must be a global endeavour. She recalled how even at the height of the Cold War, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project docking mission of 1975 allowed for U.S.-Russian cooperation.

Discussions are ongoing to decide what will replace the ISS project beyond 2024. Countries like India, China, South Korea and the UAE will likely play an important role, in addition to the current partner agencies of the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia and Japan. The 21st century has been an Asian one in space as well. China became the third country to launch a manned spacecraft in 2003, and has announced about 30 orbital launches for this year. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission successfully entered the Mars orbit in 2014, making it the first Asian country to do so.

In the meantime, Japan is considering joining a U.S.-proposed project to build a new space station orbiting the moon, hoping such a move will boost the chances of sending Japanese astronauts to the lunar surface in the future. The country plans to send its first lander to the moon by 2019. Last month, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) also announced the possibility of teaming up with the Indian Space Research Organisation to bring back samples from the Moon.

National security aspects

However, this heightened activity means that the national security aspects of outer space use can’t be ignored. Asia’s economic ascent has spurred military modernisations. Space exploration can be seen as one more manifestation of this competition. The military potential of satellites include communications, navigation, early-warning systems, reconnaissance, and signal intelligence. A nation with the upper hand in space can likely dominate the outcome of a war on Earth.

The Japanese government is moving toward participating for the first time in American-led defence exercises targeting satellite jamming and other threats in space. The fact that China has rapidly gained in space exploration muscle is widely considered to be a motivating factor.Yet, Ms. Yamazaki remains sanguine. “Space is different from politics and economics. We are astronauts, not generals,” she said, insisting that exploring the cosmos was a common goal for all humanity.

(Pallavi Aiyar is an author and journalist based in Tokyo)

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