Afterword

AFTERWORD

WHEN ROCKET GIRLS was first published in 1995, it was hailed as a “prophetic” book foretelling what tomorrow held for space exploration. The book became so popular, in fact, that it quickly became hard to find on bookstore shelves. I cannot express how delighted I am that Rocket Girls is now available to an English-speaking audience, and it is my great hope that some of those involved with the space programs of North America and Europe will keep the book close at hand and find it a useful reference as they plan for the future.

So, what warrants the “prophetic” label Rocket Girls has earned? When the book was updated in 2007 to coincide with the release of the anime version, I addressed this very question in the afterword, excerpts of which follow.

1. The second space shuttle disaster led to a period of greatly reduced manned spaceflight.

Director Nasuda discusses this at the beginning of the book. NASA was forced to rely on the Russians to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. At the time, the Russian workforce itself had been decimated, leaving both programs in a precarious position.

2. Manned spaceflight using hybrid rockets is a reality.

This incredible achievement was accomplished by a private company led by the brilliant Burt Rutan. This novel portrays a similar example of a small group of talented individuals working together to accomplish an ambitious goal.

Unlike the rocket described in the book, the actual hybrid is only capable of suborbital flight; greater thrust is probably necessary to reach orbital velocity. However, since this is a work of science fiction, we can make up the difference.

3. NASA’s next generation spacecraft will employ a capsule design.

NASA has learned from the high cost and safety problems of the space shuttle. In light of this, it’s safe to dismiss criticism of this book for using a “primitive” capsule design. NASA is planning two new launch vehicles: Ares I, which will loft the crew into orbit, and Ares V, which will carry cargo. This is the same, eminently rational, division of labor envisioned in the book.

4. Skintight space suits have entered the research phase.

Even I had doubts that this would become a reality. Nonetheless, JAXA’s own literature now makes mention of “skin-tight” space suits, and research on their design is underway in laboratories at MIT. An Internet search for “bio-suit” will bring up the website, which describes the suit much as it appears in the book—a “second skin.” There’s even a picture of a mock-up suit that looks exactly like Yukari’s skinsuit.

It will probably be some time before the suit is ready for use, but when it is, it will give a significant edge to manned spaceflight. Current space suits significantly restrict motion, making robots much more competitive in this area than they otherwise would be.

Three years ago, I ended the afterword here. Have there been any developments in the intervening years that would add to that list? Read on.

5. The dawn of private-sector space exploration.

Space X, a company created by one of the founders of Pay-Pal, has succeeded in launching its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets. In Hokkaido, Takafumi Horie, a popular figure in the IT industry, is conducting experiments on liquid-fueled rockets. Though their plans closely resemble one another, they were conceived independently. Still another private developer in Hokkaido has created a small hybrid rocket by the name of CAMUI, which is now available commercially.

You might be wondering how this qualifies as prophetic. Wasn’t the Solomon Space Association backed by government funding?

Though this is true, the management at the SSA as depicted in the book is decidedly private sector. They didn’t choose the Solomon Islands for their base simply because the site was ideal for launching rockets. They also wanted a location where they would be free of government intervention and bureaucracy, while at the same time affording them some degree of economic independence.

That so many successful figures from the IT industry have stepped forward to meet the challenges posed by space exploration indicates to me that, free to apply their own resources to the task, they feel they stand a chance of outdoing NASA. And as it happens, NASA appears to agree. The agency has already begun working in partnership with many of these private projects. Space X tested Falcon 1 on an island no one had ever heard of, while Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral. NASA is also supporting the development of Space X’s manned Dragon capsule, while at the same time canceling its own Ares program, mentioned above in point 3.

In fact, even I am working as a fellow in the space exploration division of an IT firm. I envision a bright future for mankind where ordinary people can travel easily between Earth and space. I believe we must strive to make the world depicted in Rocket Girls a reality, so that one day even husky individuals like me will be able to enjoy the thrill of space travel.

Housuke Nojiri

June 2010

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Mie, Japan, in 1961. After working in instrumentation control, CAD programming, and game design, Housuke Nojiri published his first work, The Blind Spot of Veis, based on the video game Creguian, in 1992. He gained popularity with his subsequent works the Creguian series and the Rocket Girl series. In 2002, he published Usurper of the Sun, ushering in a new era of space science fiction in Japan. After first appearing as a series of short stories, Usurper won the Seiun Award for best Japanese science fiction novel of 2002 and was published in English in 2009. His other works include Pendulum of Pinieru and Fuwa-Fuwa no Izumi.