Japan’s Hakuto is reaching to the moon for outer-space mineral development

“I saw Star Wars when I was in elementary school and thought that the spaceships were really cool. That was the start,” says Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of iSpace Technologies, reflecting on where his fascination with outer space began. His company is leading the team behind Hakuto, the only Japanese team competing in Google’s Lunar X Prize.

To win the US$20 million purse, Hakamada needs to be the first team to land a robot on the moon, move 500 meters, and stream HD mooncasts, all with 10 percent or less government funding. The deadline is December 31, 2016. Hakuto’s entry in the contest has been attracting plenty of media attention, but iSpace Technologies is working to have a future beyond the contest.

The success of Hakuto and its competitors will be a bellweather for how well private firms can engineer and execute operations in outer space. Hakamada is optimistic that the results will open up new business markets in resource mapping and development, as well as robotics. The allure of being a pioneer is what motivates him.

He also anticipates pioneers in space industries to attract interest from investors. So far, the startup has survived thanks to angel investors, but in the future he thinks that they can get money from regular investors as well.

Not all those who wander are lost

Hakamada’s chances of being CEO of one of the world’s few outer space startups were slim from the start. After high school he became a ronin, a student without a college to call home. After two years he managed to pass the entrance exam to Nagoya University. To learn how to build a spaceship he graduated from the aerospace engineering program, and then attended Georgia Tech in the United States to dive deeper via a masters program. By 2006, he knew how to build a spaceship.

And then he took his degree and became a management consultant specializing in purchase cost optimization for a boutique. The incongruous career choice is one that Hakamada felt he had to take. “If I go to [a government space agency], it will be difficult to innovate,” he says, recalling why he hesitated.

Working for a private company was not an option he entertained. In America, he was facing visa and security clearance issues. In Japan, he felt like the private firms were just taking outsourced work from the government, with little to no room for making their own products. So he went into consulting to bide his time and save up some money. “This was my strategy so I was not too disappointed. My plan was to enhance [the industry] from the outside,” he says.

Takeshi Hakamada holding the “Tetris.” At least one of these two will one day be on the moon.

Hakamada’s opportunity came via a stroke of luck. Attending the wedding of a good friend, he happened to be seated next to an outer-space focused entrepreneur working for White Label Space in the Netherlands. That team had entered the Google Lunar X Prize competition in 2009, but was looking for some new support in 2010 when Hakamada met them.

Hakamada helped the team as a volunteer, eventually becoming the point person for all Japan-side operations. Volunteerism in the space game is common – over the past four plus years he has been involved, Hakamada has worked with about 100 individuals who donated their time to support the project. In early 2013, Hakamada left his consulting job as the leadership on the EU-side of White Label dropped out and gave him the team, and the contest slot. He then rebranded the project Hakuto.