Dr. Rocket: Itokawa Hideo, Scientific Celebrity, and Japanese Modernity, 1912–99

It would not be an exaggeration to say that anyone with any knowledge at all about rocketry in Japan knows the name Itokawa Hideo (1912–1999). It was Itokawa who, in 1952, formed the AVSA group at Tokyo University which went on to develop Japan's earliest, solid-fuel, rockets – including the Lambda rocket that made Japan the fourth country to put a satellite into orbit in 1970. An internationally known figure, Itokawa was constantly in the media through interviews and lectures, wrote relentlessly in the public press, made numerous appearances on television, and ultimately had an asteroid – 25143 Itokawa – named after him. After Itokawa's death, his followers and students kept his memory alive, strategically trimming or spinning his career where necessary.

Itokawa's career was focused on writing on subjects well beyond the pale of rocketry research. Here, he parlayed his international links – networks ranging from the purely technical to overtly political – into his public appearances. Nevertheless, space exploration and futurology remained central to his writings. On one hand, Itokawa travelled widely, established foreign links, and mediated this knowledge to a Japanese audience – while also representing Japanese space technology abroad. On the other hand, he wrote extensively on the future of Japanese space exploration, the necessity of deep space research, and the promise held by these technologies.

This presentation will, first, examine the legacy of Itokawa's wartime work. Second, it will look at Itokawa's role as a mediator of foreign knowledge to Japan – a figure who intentionally situated himself on the peripheries of Japanese knowledge in the name of innovation and progress. Lastly, it examines the hagiographical elements of his follower's writings, to garner a better sense of how and why this idiosyncratic, and sometimes controversial, figure, acquired monikers like 'Japan's Da Vinci' and 'Dr. Rocket.'