Japan to announce participation in U.S. lunar project by year-end

The last people to walk on the moon were American astronauts from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

1972, because the US's involvement in the Vietnam War was winding down and ended in 1973 -- didn't need the moon to distract Americans from the clusterfrack in Southeast Asia anymore.

Coincidence that USA wants to put nukes in space. We can help pay for that.

I can't wait for the NASA news conference where the NHK reporter will ask how important Japan's contribution is.

If the minister hopes to announce something at the end of the year, what is the point of this little announcement?

Maybe we can put nuclear waste there

Good luck. JAXA and NASA a great team. The science and tech that will come out of the project will benefit all mankind.

Musk will be on Mars by then.

Super exciting news! Lets hope at least one Japanese astronaut walks on the moon by 2024 side by side with an American.

In March, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence pledged to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2024 

I like Pence, he is almost as wise as Trump.

Long term I’d love a “Japan Space Force” to be jointly launched by JAXA and Japan Military.

A guise for Space Force. The US is not satisfied that it has saturated the world with nuclear arms, now they want to saturate space with them as well.

There will never be peace on earth until the nations of the globe rein in the US, isolate the US.

Of course even an announcement about scientific exploration of space gets twisted into a US led Trump conspiracy by the usual suspects.

I'm excited for us to finally get back into space. It's been too long since we really did anything new out there.