Shuttle blasts off carrying Japanese lab

"The shuttle crew is made up of six Americans and one Japanese." But I'll bet a shiny new €uro that anyone watching Japanese TV will be led to believe that the "One Japanese" is the ONLY one up there, and he's heroically doing EVERYTHING himself! "Kibo-Hoshide" "Kibo-Hoshide" "Kibo-Hoshide" "Kibo-Hoshide" "Kibo-Hoshide" is all we'll hear until this mission is complete.

Great. The Japanese now have a platform from which to perform their pointless, cutesy space 'experiments'- like trying to see how far a 'very famous Japanese oragami' paper airplane will fly in space, playing with boomerangs in space, seeing how many times a Hello Kitty doll can somersault in the weightlessness of space, or whatever the hell it is they do up there. It's clearly amateur hour when the Japanese take to the cosmos, and I hope the Americans and the Russians make sure they kick in for gas money to get them up there.

i heard he's wearing a Hello Kitty spacesuit

The exposed facility of Kibo will get among others an all sky x-ray survey camera and a Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder next year.

Experiments inside Kibo will include: -Crystal Growth of Alloy Semiconductor Under Microgravity -Crystal growth mechanisms associated with the macromolecules adsorbed at a growing interface –Microgravity effect for self-oscillatory growth -Mechanisms of Gravity Resistance in Plants - From Signal Transformation and Transduction to Response

I just read a Japanese language article about this launch. Grouchy Gaijin called this one. According to the article, "Hoshide and seven others will be taking Kibo to the ISS." No names except for Kibo, Hoshide, and the Ministry of Science.... etc

why they **** are they still growing crystals in space??? its been going on since the 60s get some new things going on up there NASA!

I just read a Japanese language article about this launch. Grouchy Gaijin called this one. According to the article, "Hoshide and seven others will be taking Kibo to the ISS." No names except for Kibo, Hoshide, and the Ministry of Science.... etc

Just like when they left Mary-Anne and the Professor's names out of the lyrics for the original Gilligan's Island theme - they were more than just "and the rest"!!! :(

Japan needs to send some bureaucrats up to the Kibo module to create pointless rules and fingerprint the other, nameless astronauts who may try to enter the module.

I'd like to know when they're going to construct a giant rotating station with artificial gravity like the one depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I'd like to know when they're going to construct a giant rotating station with artificial gravity like the one depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Yeah. And where's my personal rocket jetpack the futurists promised? I've been waiting since 1966!!

blvtzpk - You mean like the one John Robinson used in Lost in Space?

Yeesh people, that's what news reports are like in other countries too.