In the summer of 2021, in the circumstances where the COVID-19 takes away freedom of coming and going of people living on Earth, the entrance to outer space was widely opened up for private citizens. A test flight of a manned spacecraft, "Unity," was successfully completed on July 11, having several people on board including Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group. Ten days later, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, boarded the “New Shepard” of Blue Origin, a space venture company he founded, and experienced five minutes of weightlessness. Also, last month, “SpaceX,” a company represented by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, successfully launched the “Crew Dragon,” a spacecraft carrying only civilians, and returned safely to Earth after they enjoyed a three-day trip orbiting Earth.

Although limited to unmanned flights at the moment, there is a great possibility that Japan can expand the space business. Japan’s technology is among the best in the world in a wide range of fields from manufacturing to various services including rockets, artificial satellites, software, communications and broadcasting, observation, and debris removal. And now, another candidate for biggest success finally joined. On September 30, Honda announced their entry into the space business, developing small rockets to be launched by the end of 2020s. Honda said that the rocket will carry a small satellite for low earth orbit, and will be reusable by utilizing the control and guidance technologies developed for the automatic driving technology.

In addition, Honda will strengthen the development of an electric vertical take-off and landing (Honda eVTOL) aircraft and alter-ego robots (Honda Avatar Robot) that apply electrification technology.

The concept of Honda eVTOL is to realize not only intra-city travel but also inter-city travel. In order to achieve this, an ability of long flight range is required, and a hybrid system with a gas turbine will be adopted. It is very Honda-like approach that they do not stick to electric power but rather focus on practicality. The technology of Honda Jet, which surprised the world with its original design concept, will be utilized for the development of the new products. As for Honda Avatar Robot, needless to say, the technology and experience of ASIMO will be the foundation of the development, and are also expected to be applied to a lunar surface teleoperation robot.

"Space" is a place where nations compete for their prestige, and it is also a strategic place of security. Nevertheless, Branson’s smile on his face and the way he expressed his excitement, saying that “To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth.”; and the dreams and confidence of Musk, who said “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.”, are definitely the driving forces behind innovation.

Honda’s space development started with the idea of a young engineer who suggested using the core technology to create a small rocket. “Instead of being afraid of the challenge and failure, be afraid of avoiding the challenge and doing nothing.” – 30 years has already passed since Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda passed away, and his wishes contained in these words have been still carried on.

This Week’s Focus, October 7

Takashi Mizukoshi, the President