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AOGS Election of Office Bearers - 2010 to 2012

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Candidate of: Planetary Science (PS) Section President Tatsuaki Okada (CV) Associate Professor Department of Planetary Science Institute of Space and Astronautical Science / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan

Mission Statement

I am Tatsuaki Okada, an associate professor of Department of Planetary Science, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. I have been mainly involved in X-ray experiments on Hayabusa and Kaguya missions, and related scientific studies. And I have served as a convener of the “Moon” session in AOGS for five years.
I believe that AOGS is founded to promote scientists in Asia-Oceania region to join together and have an opportunity to discuss on their research works, and to conduct their activities more internationally. Especially on topics in PS section, international collaboration is crucial, because experiments in space or on the Moon and planets are getting more and more difficult to accomplish in a country: large-scale missions with high quality instruments should be required for much improvement in resolution and accuracy as well as a longer distance space trip.

For five years, five orbiters (Smart-1, Kaguya, Chang’E-1, Chandrayaan-1, and LRO) circled the Moon for observation with many new discoveries, but I think the Moon session in AOGS that I convene cannot always sufficiently contribute to that purpose mentioned above. Most of the presenters are from limited countries (US, Europe, and Japan), and only some representatives from China and India. Part of the reason may be political, but mainly due to budget. AOGS for whom? I believe that the point should be considered and improved in the future. For example, much reduced fees for students, or extended opportunities for fee waivers will be necessary for most of researchers and students in this area to participate.
On the other hand, there existed some attendants from the home country (for example, when held in Busan, Korea), which I think is very important for the purpose of AOGS. Therefore selection of location for the annual meeting is another essential point to be considered.

In PS section, three or four parallel sessions exist, which I believe it too many, so that we might miss many excellent talks. Currently the session is based on each planet or each mission, but I would like to reassign the sessions in comparative planetary view: geophysics and interior, geology and surface processes, atmosphere, aeronomy and exosphere, small body (dust, meteor, meterorites), rings and icy satellites, solar system evolution, instruments, and some others. Several regular sessions with some topics sessions (for example, concentrated on a new planetary mission) should be a case to realize no more than two parallel sessions. Number of oral talks should be limited for the purpose, so that the portion of poster presentations increases.