Managing the Interface between Politics and Technology : Itokawa Hideo, Shima Hideo, and the Early Japanese Space Programs(<Special Issue>Science, Technology, and the State in East Asia: Experts and Politicians in Postwar Korea and Japan)

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Two principal leaders of the early Japanese space programs, Itokawa Hideo and Shima Hideo, made a stark contrast in terms of their personality, management style, and political stance. Itokawa, who led rocket development at a University of Tokyo's research institute, was very adept at accessing political power and obtaining resources to propel his engineering goals. Being tremendously active, sharp, and capricious, he fearlessly approached political power and sought to make use of it for the sake of his self-fulfillment. Meanwhile, Shima, the first president of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, always distanced himself from politics, focusing on engineering management. Modest, courteous, and extremely punctual, he left political tasks to somebody else wherever possible. Such a contrast in their styles and philosophies suggest the complexity of the task of managing the interface between politics and technology, and implies that further historical inquiry into nationally-sponsored engineering research and development efforts in a wide range of fields might have the potential to yield profound insights into the dynamics of politics and technology.
2012-03-31