We have received tremendous response since we announced the Vision, and the Vision emphasizes International collaboration. Even if a project is beyond one country's capability, since space is such a large-scale field, the benefit can be shared globally, and therefore, international collaboration is very significant. Even the United States recognizes its importance, encouraging such collaboration in their vision published last year.

In the field of science, countries have been collaborating across borders for a long time. For instance, a Japanese rocket has launched a satellite equipped with a made-in-America sensor. Inversely, an observation device that was developed by Japan has been launched on an American satellite. If not for international collaboration, the Mercury exploration project BepiColombo and the OICETS (Optical Inter-orbit Communication Engineering Test Satellite) project would absolutely not be possible.

However, the area of space exploitation appears to be lagging in taking advantage of international collaboration. I get the impression that each country is still focusing only on its own benefit.

Our Vision emphasizes international collaboration, especially for the area of space utilization. As satellites also monitor the other side of the globe, such as Europe and the United States, I'd like them to make good use of the data as well. Our priority will be to come up with the best way to process the data gathered in Japan and other Asian countries.

Asia is a region of many natural disasters, so how accurately we can monitor the different land surfaces and make predictions will be key. For instance, we could raise the alarm on the occurrence of a tsunami. There will be a need for many new satellites to enable us to accommodate any type of disaster. It's difficult to prevent natural disasters, so it's essential to establish a system that can control information distribution for natural disaster predictions, and for disasters that have already occurred, as smoothly and quickly as possible. This year, Japan's ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) is scheduled to be launched. JAXA has joined the International Disaster Charter to contribute ALOS's disaster observations.

Recently, Italy, which also experiences many earthquakes, contacted us, and we have agreed to work together to acquire information about earthquakes from space. Many countries have great interest in disaster management, so it's extremely important to initiate projects in this area, as smoother international collaboration can be expected.

The Vision has been well received abroad and has also inspired those, such as Europe and Russia, who haven't articulated their own long-term vision. Apparently, Russia is hoping to announce its vision in the near future.