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  • On the moon where the sun's shining

  • it's blindingly bright.

  • Where it isn't, it's pitch black.

  • The surface is covered in the finest particles of sand.

  • It's a tricky environment

  • for even the most advanced machines to navigate.

  • And before fleets of these things start roaming

  • the real moon, this engineer has many late nights ahead.

  • Perfecting this rover and testing it

  • on an artificial landscape like this one

  • will get us one step closer to establishing

  • the first human settlement away from Earth.

  • Discovery, roger, go for deploy.

  • One day when you and I make it up to the moon,

  • it could be thanks to her.

  • My name is Akane Imamura

  • and I built miniature lunar rover.

  • Going to the moon used to be something

  • only the biggest governments dreamed of.

  • But with the growing commercialization of space

  • some of the most exciting projects now

  • are taking place at startups.

  • And today I'm back in my hometown to visit one of them.

  • iSpace got its start in 2010 as a group of engineers

  • competing for the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE.

  • The competition expired last year without a winner.

  • But having raised more than $90 million

  • from Japan's government-backed funds and companies

  • including Japan Airlines, iSpace is now focused

  • on becoming a business in its own right.

  • So this is the rover?

  • Yeah, this is the rover.

  • And I'll tell ya,

  • Indy's never seen a driver like this.

  • When you think of a space rover,

  • you might think of the moon buggy

  • used in three of the Apollo missions.

  • There's a big crater.

  • They're the ones.

  • Or the Opportunity rover

  • that looked for water on Mars.

  • Next to these two hulking creations from previous decades,

  • iSpace's machine is so small it looks like a toy.

  • Flip it over?

  • Yeah.

  • Akane's team is racing against their deadline

  • of 2021 when a SpaceX rocket will blast iSpace's lander

  • carrying two rovers into orbit around the moon.

  • After a soft landing, each rover will roll out

  • and roam the lunar landscape, sending images, video,

  • and mapping data back to Earth.

  • Tomorrow Akane's team

  • will take one big step forward.

  • They're going to be taking

  • these two prototypes to a fake moon.

  • Akane's responsible

  • for the structural elements of the Rover.

  • And that involves everything from choosing

  • the best physical materials to make a lightweight

  • but still resilient machine to the thorny challenge

  • of designing the shape of these wheels.

  • Early the next morning we made our way

  • to the suburbs outside Tokyo.

  • And once the city's high-rises

  • give way to smaller neighborhoods

  • we reached our destination,

  • the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.

  • Here on Earth this is the closest thing to the moon.

  • We have an hour, hour and a half of real testing

  • this morning with both Rover A and Rover B

  • doing their tests in parallel.

  • Make sure that we're logging and backing up all the data.

  • Okay, let's do it.

  • And after a few final preparations they started the tests.

  • At first was a series

  • of 10 meter crawls along flat ground.

  • With every run, Akane's team reconfigured the rover

  • to have a different weight distribution.

  • The plan was to see which versions

  • would be able to run straight.

  • And measure how much

  • the rogue ones would veer off-path.

  • And then it was the hardest part of the day,

  • the lunar hill climbs.

  • And with a chance to play a very tiny role

  • in establishing humanity's presence

  • on the moon, I couldn't resist.

  • Dear future lunar residents

  • and lunar tourists, you're welcome.

  • Bye bye.

  • Bye.

  • For about two days a week, Akane works from home.

  • And it's this flexibility that's helped her

  • balance a job as daunting as building a space rover--

  • With another equally demanding responsibility.

  • But in a country that has one

  • of the developed world's worst records on gender inequality,

  • Akane's success is still rare,

  • and even for her a pretty recent development.

  • Akane has a Master's in Mechanical Engineering

  • and her first job out of school involved research

  • on concrete and later on metals

  • at a big prestigious Japanese manufacturer.

  • She was one of very few female engineers

  • in an R&D department dominated by men.

  • Several times Akane considered

  • quitting work altogether and becoming a full-time housewife

  • while her husband pursued his career.

  • In 2017, Akane joined iSpace

  • as a spacecraft structure engineer.

  • The hectic nature of life at a startup

  • has come with its own challenges.

  • But in a company that's attracted young people

  • from countries like France, the US, and Canada

  • she says she's a lot happier now.

  • iSpace predicts its city on the moon

  • will be ready in 2040.

  • By then, with an estimated $1 trillion

  • global space industry to serve we'll have a whole generation

  • of engineers building machines

  • to explore the moon, Mars, and beyond.

  • Now that they've successfully completed their field tests,

  • Akane and her coworkers have been busy

  • analyzing all the data they collected

  • so they can start designing the next iteration of the rover.

  • Their first true milestone

  • will be the rover's launch day in two years' time.

On the moon where the sun's shining

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B1 中級

月のミニローバーエンジニア (The Moon Mini-Rover Engineer)

  • 3 0
    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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