Greetings from Dr. Tamiya
Nomura,
the first president
From the time of by-gone days when Icarus first flew the sky,
the cosmos always has been the stage for the mankind to aspire
after. Men always wished so much to fly in the sky with ever-growing
curiosity to know the truth behind the twinkling stars in the
night sky. Great progress achieved in the field of Astronomy
has helped resolve one enigma after another of the cosmos.
There is, however, no end to the aspirations of the mankind.
Wishing to fly further to the distance, the mankind finally
stepped on the moon making the fullest use of the advanced technology
of electronics and rocket propulsion. Today, quite a few number
of surveyors are flying in the inter- planetary space and successfully
achieving a most valuable observatory study of the origin and
evolutionary enigmas of the eternal cosmos.
The task of protecting this Planet Earth from the present ecological
crisis in terms of natural resources and environmental issues
is unmistakably the most important job to be done by the mankind
of the new century. And this task will never be achieved without
gazing at the Planet Earth, our home planet, scientifically
and objectively from the cosmic perspective. I believe that
the population issue is the best example. The forecast of the
world population's excess over 10 billion in the 21st century
is most aptly suggestive that we can never survive only within
this small framework of the Planet Earth.
Life was first born in the sea and evolved onto the land with
the traces of mankind left everywhere on land of the Earth.
The cosmos, therefore, is the greatest "New Frontier" which
is left for the mankind.
In 1980 the late Dr. Carl Sagan, the noted space scientist
and stronomer, Dr. Bruce Murray, then the director of NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and Dr. Louis Friedman, founded The Planetary
Society (TPS) in Pasadena, California with the mission of supporting
for and participating in the peaceful exploration program of
the solar system from the standpoint of a non-governmental and
non-profit organization. With 100,000 members in over 140 countries,
the Society today is the largest space interest group in the
world and has been very successfully active in cooperation with
UN, NASA and each space agency of the countries and university
laboratories throughout the world.
By keeping up with the most close working relationship with
them, TPS thus has been active in exploration of planets, searching
for extraterrestrial life in the universe and international
cooperation on educational program of space science and contributing
to the better understanding of the space by the people of the
world.
Japan's first attempt was the launching of a pencil size rocket
in 1955. Ever since then after a lot of hard works, "Ohsumi,"
the first satellite successfully launched in 1970, has become
a stepping stone for Japan to join the world stage of space
exploration. Japan now has entered into a new stage of Mars
exploration program with "Nozomi" and other ambitious programs.
Taking the afore-mentioned circumstances into my serious consideration,
we have come to decide to organize The Planetary Society of
Japan (TPS/J), in close relationship with The Planetary Society
(TPS) in Pasadena, California. Sharing the same ideals and philosophy
with TPS, TPS/J is intended to organize a non-governmental and
non-profit corporation. Our society is determined firmly to
do our utmost efforts for inviting the society members to a
far broader understanding and deeper charms of the space exploration.
Thank you all for your understanding and full cooperation to
this new organization "The Planetary Society of Japan."
- Greetings from Tamiya Nomura
Copyright (c) 2000 The Planetary Society of Japan.
All rights reserved.
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