Episode 140 - The Stars Our Destination

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

History

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2016

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we'll talk about the birth of the Japanese space program. From its origins as the brainchild of a former weapons designer and a borderline pyromaniac, the programs now incorporated into JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) have accomplished some of the most amazing technical feats of the 20th and 21st century. How did they do it, and why? And what's changing now with the rise of China?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
0:03.4	Audible has over 180,000 titles to choose from, all compatible with iPhone, Android,
0:10.4	Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice.
0:13.7	For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership, complete with
0:18.7	credit for a free audiobook of your choice. You can cancel any time
0:22.5	and keep the free book, or keep going with one of Audible's subscription offers. Go to audibletrial.com
0:28.6	slash Japan to claim your offer. This week I'm going to recommend Packing for Mars, the curious
0:35.3	science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach. I'm a pretty unabashed
0:39.8	space booster, and it's my fervent hope that will make it to Mars within my lifetime. If you're
0:45.5	curious what that trip could look like, Roach's book is a great place to start. Her writing is
0:51.2	equal parts funny and moving, and she makes a great case not only for what it will take to get out there, but why going out there is worth it.
1:00.2	Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 140, The Stars Are Destination.
1:29.1	On October 4, 1957, humanity made history.
1:34.5	Well, more specifically, the Soviet Union did.
1:37.9	After three years of work directed by the secretive rocket genius Sergei Korolev,
1:42.8	whose work was so valuable that even his name was classified
1:46.2	until his death in 1966, the government of the USSR put humanity's first artificial satellite
1:53.5	into orbit. The name of that satellite was Sputnik, which, well, far from creative, the name
2:00.2	literally just means satellite in Russian,
2:03.0	at least has the virtue of being very descriptive.
2:06.7	Sputnik stayed in orbit for 92 days before its orbit finally decayed on January 4, 1958.
2:13.7	However, its impact was far more dramatic than a scant three months in space might suggest.
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