Honda pulls off surprise reusable rocket test launch – DW – 06/18/2025
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Honda says growing expectations of a "data system in outer space" are going to increase the demand for rockets to launch satellites. So, the Japanese automaker quietly built one and tested it successfully.

Honda says growing expectations of a “data system in outer space” are going to increase the demand for rockets to launch satellites. So, the Japanese automaker quietly built one and tested it successfully.

Japan’s second-largest carmaker, Honda, has successfully tested an experimental reusable space rocket on the nothern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the company said in a surprise announcement.

“The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters (1,000 feet),” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The carmaker aims to achieve suborbital space flight in 2029. In 2021, Honda said it was studying space technologies such as reusable rockets but made no announcements prior to Tuesday’s test

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    248·
    10 days ago

    I love that space travel is becoming so democratized now.

    It shouldn’t just be governments, it shouldn’t just be private companies, it should be anyone with the wherewithal to figure the technology out.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      353·
      10 days ago

      If your idea of ‘democratized’ is ‘now giant megacorps have comparable capital and assets to entire nation states’…

      You have a very, very silly understanding of democracy.

      Please explain to me how a giant mega corp is… democratic in nature.

      You are describing cyberpunk style, hypercorporate techno-feudalism as democracy.

      Democracy is one person, one vote.

      Corporate governance structures can basically be boiled down to: one dollar, one vote, ie, oligarchy.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        171·
        10 days ago

        Yeah. Most of humanity has been propagandised into believing that corporations, which are run like dictatorships where < 1% are the majority shareholders who control the operation, are actually equivalent to “freedom” and “democracy”.

        Clown world.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Uh hey, wanna learn Spanish and Basque proficiently, move to Spain, and try to convince Mondragon to branch out into spaceflight, lol?