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Entrepreneur's rocket explodes seconds after lift-off

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29 Comments
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Sad to see that. Good luck next time around!

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Really? A launch would also be unprecedented, surely...

Horie called it an unprecedented failure.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Horie called it an unprecedented failure.

Did he really call it that? Lol. You don't normally call failures unprecedented and celebrate them as "the first failure its kind!"

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Never mess with J-inc

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

However, privately backed efforts to explore space from Japan have so far failed to compete with the government-run Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

What chance does a convicted fraudster have against an army of unconvicted fraudsters?

9 ( +11 / -2 )

next one will fly, unless they will try to sabotage him again

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

技術的問題がある部分は、ひと通り潰して打ち上げに臨んだが、今までにない失敗モードでの失敗だった

According to J Huff, that is what he said. Difficult to translate, but JT and NHK's attempts are well within the ballpark. I guess what Horie was saying that they dry ran everything that was potentially problematical under every sort of scenario, but an unexpected failure mode cropped up (and this is what they will have to find and sort out from now on).

4 ( +4 / -0 )

OOps, forgot the link. Taken from here:

https://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2018/06/29/ist-momo2_a_23471552/

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@albaleo: He went to jail for less than all the other Japanese companies recently all admitted to. None of them went to jail.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

He went to jail for less than all the other Japanese companies recently all admitted to. 

@gogogo, that's what I intended to imply in my post.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I am really disappointed about this. I hope the government helps Horie-san with the next launch, financially and with hardware. Japan cannot afford to fall behind China in the Space race for one second.The development must go on despite small setback.

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

i take it he's not an engineer. Rocket science really is rocket science

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Horie called it an unprecedented failure.

I'm sure that's true. Horie has had other kinds of failure, but never this one.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Forget about putting rockets into space. This is just throwing money away.

Spend the billions for life on earth.

Buy large tracts of land for dog and cat sanctuaries. Help try to find a cure for cancer.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

We learn more from our failures than from our success.

Non-toy rockets are hard.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Japanese Elon Musk. Japanese youngsters need more people like this guy to look up to.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Horie is wannabe! He wants to be an Elon Musk. The rockets are mostly for show. He has no real vision on where he wants to go with this company. He is just imitating others. This is Japan Inc's problem in the tech industry. They either want to imitate what has already been done outside of Japan, but the tech world changes so rapidly that is hard trying to catch up. Or, they go in directions that what have worked 10 years, but they were too afraid to pull the trigger. Those strategies might have worked with the VCR, but it is not happening now.

Horie also doesn't want to pass out the brown envelopes to greedy "old-heads". This is why he served time and doesn't get much support from the establishment. Others in Japan have done far worst.

If he was really serious then he would get involved with international groups who are really making strives in the private sector. He could learn a lot in a shorter period of time and bring that back to Japan to inspire younger generations.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Made in Japan.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Well, third try... You need to fail a dozen before your system works. Good luck for next time.

 just throwing money away.

So is pachinko. It's the money of Horie and his friends, not tax money, so he does as he wants. Then, no, you are wrong, that much more useful than sanctuaries for cats. When he buys parts and hires staff to work on his rockets, he contributes to research (help the supplier fund their development and he trains lots of engineering staff that will then join other projects).

A rocket developed by a maverick Japanese entrepreneur and convicted fraudster exploded 

So the rocket exploded due to fraud ? Please author of the article, explain me what you mean.

JT, what kind of reporting is that ? More about his antics than about what his great current project. Yes, he was convicted in questionable circumstances and jailed in front of many cameras for the great pleasure of J-media. Then what that does to the rocket ? If you really want to do that, OK, but please apply the same rule to big kaishas and politicians. For instance, every time you mention Aso or Abe, add 100 lines about their past and current cases.

The Ferrari-driving Horie -

Here again, I ask : the Ferrari caused the explosion ? BTW, what car drives the chauffeur of the CEO of Tepco at the time of 3/11 ?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

"Livedoor's creator Takafumi Horie"

I totally blame that criminal Horie-mon for this failure.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Hey you’s guys, watch this!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The Wright brothers didn't throw their hands up in defeat after their first flight wasn't a success. Space is still an unknown frontier.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

GyGene Watch what?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@speed, the Earth is a death trap. Life will end here. That is certain. It will take thousands of years for humans to get far enough away from Sol to survive the sun turning into a red giant. These are just the first steps in a very long journey to save humanity.

You and I won't get anything from this effort, but 10 generations from now, they will.

Fortunately, different people have different passions, so humanity can work on multiple things at the same time, at their resources dictate. How much of your life today can be traced back to requirements first solved for rockets? Microchips. Tiny, high-resolution cameras. Low power everything. World-wide television. Materials sciences. Basically, take a step back into the 1950s without those things.

And just to be clear, almost zero rockets are put into space just to be in space. It is about the payload and the destination for that payload which matter. Sometimes that is for knowledge, but much more often, it is for commercial uses.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Laika the dog died in space because of radiation that no one knew about. Then Ham the chimp went up in a shielded capsule and he survived. That paved the way for Yuri Gagarin. Space exploration is something you keep on working at - 'chipping away the stone' as it's said. Better luck next time, fellas. Keep the faith.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Better luck next time then Japan. First attempt failed.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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