Outreach Activity of Japanese Lunar and Planetary Exploration:The Moon Station Way

Abstract

The Moon Station (“Tsuki Tansa Joho Station” in Japanese, http://moonstation.jp) is one of the most popular outreach and information site for domestic and world lunar and planetary exploration since November 1998. Beginning from the introduction and publication of Japanese lunar exploration called SELENE (now called as Kaguya), the site grew as the foremost portal of general lunar exploration, now independent from JAXA and any other space-related organizations. The site covers wide variety of content from professional writings to public attraction such as rebuttals to Apollo lunar landing hoax. The Moon Station now attracts more than 60,000 access (6,000 pageviews) per day in average. The site features vast amount of current, past and future explorations and their scientific background. The site is managed under collaborations with planetary scientists and space engineers both in Japan and worldwide to assure accurate content and quick information provision. This variety and maintaining of contents are the main reason of continuance and attraction of the site for more than ten years.