The Smallest Astronauts
Suitable for all audiences is “Rocket Girls”, a living embodiment of one of Johnny Carson’s basics: “If you buy the premise, you buy the bit.” In this universe, in which Japan has its own space program (sort of, it’s a private company), the Solomon Space Association, they’ve struck a serious problem, potentially fatal to the whole business. The problem is that their latest rocket, the LS-7, large enough to carry an astronaut into orbit, tends to explode upon launching (like, every single time they’ve tried it); their backers are threatening to pull their funding if they don’t actually launch an astronaut… soon; and their very reliable older rocket, the LS-5, cannot lift a full grown man, unless they starve him down to the point where he flat out quits the program.
That’s where the premise comes in. While trying to recapture (but not kill) their one and only astronaut, the forces of the SSA encounter a short, skinny Japanese high school girl, Yukari Morita, arrived upon her own mission, seeking the father who conceived her, then disappeared on her parents’ honeymoon on Guadalcanal. Suddenly, during the yelling Yukari dishes out to all concerned afterwards, the man in charge of the SSA, Isao Nasuda, realizes that a short, skinny, female teenager might be able to do everything a fully grown man can do WITHOUT blowing the weight limit, and gets an idea,... an awful idea,... a wonderful, awful idea….
On the promise by Nasuda to start looking for the truth about her father (something at least in theory he can do better than she can), Yukari agrees to start training as an astronaut, and the bit is launched! What follows are an accelerated astronaut training program on a shoestring budget, the strange actions of all the assorted weirdos and loons willing to try so hard to achieve Japan’s first manned space program, a couple more short, skinny, Japanese or part Japanese teenage girl astronauts, and a couple of space missions: one at the halfway point and one at the ending that work about as safely and smoothly and routinely…
as Apollo 13 did. Definitely, a hoot and a half!
Note: This series is only subtitled in English; there is no English voice dubbing.
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