With any endeavor that pushes innovation and technological progress, planning an interstellar journey will generate some inevitable spin-offs that may help us solve some of the most pressing issues of our time.
The mix of unstoppable technological change with the apparently unanswerable intellectual defeat of central planning has made globalisation appear inevitable: only its speed and its consequences seem open to debate.
Key to creating a successful hybrid will be whether Japan's leaders allow certain parts of the system to be unmanaged -- whether they fully understand that detailed planning and close interfirm cooperation have limitations when exploring the technological frontier, especially in software and biotechnology.