The Obama Administration’s decision to extend the life of the International Space Station (ISS) may be welcome news to the space agencies involved in the project, but apparently not everyone in the Japanese government has bought into it. An editorial in Thursday’s Yomiuri Shimbum notes that a Japanese panel of experts has recommended that the Japanese government reexamine the benefits from the space program and “did not rule out that Japan might withdraw from the ISS program in the future.”

The editorial comments that 40 billon of the country’s 200 billion yen non-national security space budget goes to the ISS, “Yet there have been so far only a few space experiments that have eventually led to discoveries that can have an industrial application” and proposals to use Japan’s Kibo laboratory module “have only trickled in.”

The main thrust of the editorial is criticizing the Japanese government for not paying sufficient attention to the future of the space program, calling it “quite irresponsible” for not having held any meetings of the Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy “which is supposed to be the control tower on the matter.” Japan’s 2008 Basic Space Law created that body, led by the Prime Minister.

The heads of the space agencies from the countries involved in the ISS program — the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada — met in Tokyo in March. They released a joint statement expressing “mutual interest in continuing operations and utilization for as long as the benefits of ISS exploitation are demonstrated.” The statement added that all would work within their governments “to reach consensus later this year on the continuation of the ISS to the next decade.” It also stated that the partnership was working to certify that the panoply of space station modules and other hardware could operate until 2028, 30 years after the first two were launched, a hint of optimism that the governments would agree that ISS is worth the investment.

Last year Japan released a Basic Space Plan to implement to its Basic Space Law. The government recently reviewed all its programs looking for cost savings and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) did fairly well in that evaluation. Japan has been the steadiest partner in the ISS program, delivering just what it promised at the beginning. As was true for the United States, it would be odd for Japan to turn away from the ISS program just as the facility is finally built, but every partner country faces its own challenges in justifying space program expenditures, as underscored by the ongoing debate over the future of the U.S. human space flight program.

South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has chosen June 9 as the date for the next launch of the country’s KSLV-1 (or Naro-1) rocket according to the Yonhap News Service. The first launch attempt failed last year when the second stage fairing did not separate properly. The rocket’s first stage is built by Russia; the second stage by South Korea. The June 9 launch from the Naro Space Center, about 500 kilometers south of Seoul, is designed to place a scientific satellite into orbit. The launch window runs through June 19.

The International Space Education Institute of Leipzig, Germany and the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao claimed first place of their respective divisions in the 17^th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race, NASA announced Saturday.

More than 70 student teams from around the world competed to design, build and race lightweight, human-powered buggies that tackle many of the same engineering challenges NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) encountered in developing the Apollo lunar rover in the 1960s.

The winners are selected based on vehicle assembly and race times in each division. The International Space Education Institute, also known as “Team Germany,” won first place in the high school division after finishing the half-mile course that simulates the lunar surface in 3 minutes 37 seconds. The University of Puerto Rico at Humacao won the college division, completing the course in 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

Tammy Rowan, manager of MSFC’s Academic Affairs Office, was quoted by NASA as saying: “it’s our goal to augment and enrich the classroom experience, and inspire a new generation of scientists, engineers and explorers to carry on NASA’s mission of discovery throughout our solar system and deliver untold benefits back home on Earth.”

The race, organized by MSFC, took place on April 9-10, 2010 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. For more information on these and other winning teams, see the press release or visit http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov/

On this day in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to fly into space. His one orbit of the Earth in Vostok 1 catalyzed the new John F. Kennedy Administration to boldly announced just six weeks later the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. In the intervening weeks, Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to reach the limits of space, though his flight was suborbital (John Glenn was the first astronaut to orbit the Earth, in February 1962). Gagarin died in 1968 in a military aircraft accident in circumstances that remain unclear even today.

In a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a series of nuclear energy deals with President Hugo Chavez and agreed to help Venezuela build a space industry, the BBC reported.

The article quoted President Chavez saying: “we could install a satellite launcher here and a factory. We are already doing so with China, but Russia is offering to support Venezuela build its own [space] industry.”

President Chavez also was quoted as saying that the plans for a nuclear power generator would be for “obviously peaceful purposes…we aren’t going to make an atomic bomb.” The article suggests that nuclear power may be a solution to power cuts the country has been experiencing.

P.J. Crowley, U.S. State Department spokesman, expressed skepticism at the new plans, saying “…perhaps the focus should be more terrestrial than extraterrestrial,” the BBC also reported.

Today’s New York Times article about the luxury boom on China’s Hainan island omits one very important aspect of the island’s future — its role as a space launch site for China’s newest launch vehicle.

The newspaper focuses on Hainan as “a potent symbol of China’s economic vitality” that is “viewed with a mix of awe, envy and disgust” by the Chinese, but nary a word is said about the launch site under construction for China’s Long March 5 launch vehicle or its potential role in China’s purported plans to send people to the Moon. Construction of the Hainan Space Launch Center recently began and is expected to be completed in 2013, with the first Long March 5 launch the following year. Hainan will be the southernmost of China’s four launch sites, 19 degrees from the equator.

The Long March 5 is being designed to launch 25 tons into low Earth orbit, roughly equivalent to a Delta 4 heavy. Chinese media stories talk about its use for launching geostationary satellites, space stations, large satellites, and deep space probes. If China wanted to send people to the Moon as many in the West speculate, it is the most likely launch vehicle to support such a goal.

Hainan is a big island — about the size of Belgium according to the New York Times. As Mr. Yin Liming of China Great Wall Industry Corp. said at the CSIS Global Space Development Summit last November, the Long March 5 is touted as being “non-toxic and pollution free,” so the golfers and yachters should have nothing to worry about.

Britan’s new space agency, U.K. Space Agency (UKSA), will formally open its doors on April 1, according to the BBC. The report says that “Its establishment should bring more coherence to space policy – something critics say has been missing for years.”

The BBC noted that creation of the agency is in response to a report from industry and academia, the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (Space-IGS), that made recommendations last month on how to increase Britain’s share of the global market in space products and services. The government reportedly plans to adopt many of the Space-IGS recommendations, but not the one calling on the United Kingdom to double its spending on European Space Agency (ESA) programs over the next decade and “initiate and lead at least three missions between now and 2030.” Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, said that the goverment could not make such commitments at this time.

The quarterly journal Space Policy and the Secure World Foundation have announced the 2010 Maxim Tarasenko Essay Contest for law school students or graduate students in space policy for a publishable article on a topic of current debate. The contest offers a prize of 500, publication of the essay, a certificate, and a one year subscription to Space Policy. Essays are due to Frances Brown, editor of Space Policy, by December 31, 2010. Complete rules are available in the announcement. The contest honors Maxim Tarasenko, a highly respected Russian space policy analyst and member of Space Policy’s Editorial Board who tragically died in 1999.

A NASA radar that orbited the Moon on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe has provided more evidence that there is water at the lunar poles. NASA’s Mini-SAR instrument (also known as Mini-RF), a lighweight synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters at the Moon’s north pole that have water ice, according to NASA.

The data are in addition to readings made at the Moon’s south pole in 2009 by NASA’s LCROSS probe, and data from another NASA instrument on Chandrayaan-1, the Moon Mineraology Mapper, that showed that there are trace amounts of water all over the lunar surface.

India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe carried 11 scientific instruments from India and several other countries including the United States. The probe entered lunar orbit in November 2008 and was intended to send back data for two years. However, India lost contact with it in August 2009. Fortunately it had already had collected and transmitted back a substantial amount of data.

If you’ve ever wondered what the view is like from a suborbital launch — and landing — this seven minute video from the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) shows the flight of Maven-11 in May 2008. It reached an altitude of 228 kilometers, providing a stunning view of Earth.

SSC has a sounding rocket center at Esrange, 45 kilometers from Kiruna, Sweden, north of the Arctic Circle. Maser-11 was launched for the European Space Agency and carried microgravity research experiments. Views from cameras on rockets on their way up are commonplace, but not so much from capsules on the way down. That view also is interesting, along with post-landing as the capsule lays askew on the ground waiting for the recovery team, probably not unlike a Soyuz capsule (or any crew spacecraft other than the space shuttle or other winged vehicles like SpaceShipTwo) returning from the International Space Station. That part doesn’t look like quite so much fun.