So much for Japan's $88 million dollar Mars mission, and the inept Japanese govt. that planned it. While I admire how Japan maintained separate space programs for years:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/jp

few, if any, are impressed with what Japan's "democracy" has been like over the years. Essentially the government has been controlled by one political party and its coalition allies. I'm told by former insiders that things were run pretty incompetently. Nepotism, excessive bureaucracy and excessive pandering to special interests were not unheard of. As if Nozomi didn't already have enough challenges with its $88 million dollar budget. Only prize-seeking entrepreneurs could do a lot with that amoung of money. Japan's space socialists could not (at least not their first time out of the starting gate).