On January 26th, Interstellar Technologies Inc. announced a collaborative project dubbed the “TENGA Rocket” set to launch in Summer 2021. The crowdfunded project plans to use the aeronautic company’s newest rocket “MOMO” to accomplish 3 missions:
- Deliver the messages of 1,000 supporters into outer space, with a TENGA-shaped message pod
- Send a TENGA robot into outer space, and have it return safely to Earth
- Send a TENGA capable of measuring data, and begin the development of a new TENGA for use in outer space
A Two-Decade Push for Space
Interstellar Technologies Inc. has been flying rockets for well over 2 decades. Founded in 2003 with the help of then-CEO of Livedoor, Horie Takafumi (a.k.a. “Horiemon”), the company has been at the forefront of Japanese space travel. They were a group of amateur rocket enthusiasts in Hokkaido that experimented in their own bathrooms. Their mission was simple: find a way for the public to cheaply enjoy launching satellites.
If the project succeeds, as the founders have stated in their crowdfunding page on Campfire, they will become one of only four companies in the world that have launched a rocket capable of attitude control. The achievement would be the first for a company outside of the United States. It would also make Insterstellar the first private organization outside of the United States to fully fund a rocket.
This means that Intersteller Technologies would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Fitting for someone like Horie, a Ferrari-driving internet mogul who has been called Japan’s “bad-boy entrepreneur.”
(Side Note: Horie was also arrested and sentenced to 2 years and 6 months imprisonment for securities fraud in 2006.)
If you’re a regular UJ reader, you probably already know about TENGA. We featured the sex toy company in a story a year ago when they ran a survey that showed some people in Japanese favored food over sex.
So how did this small-scale company come to partner with arguably the world’s most prominent sex toy company?
For “Love and Freedom”
It would be the first rocket fully developed by a private organization in Japan to reach outer space. Click To TweetAt the project’s announcement event, Horie recounted how he came to partner with TENGA’s CEO, Matsumoto Koichi. “I became friends with him, and over the holidays he actually sent me a Tenga as a gift. Afterward, when we were guests on a TV show, Atsushi Tamura from London Boots Ichi-gō Ni-gō (a Japanese comedy duo) mentioned that we should make a TENGA rocket together, and we just decided then and there that we would.”
Related: Special Delivery from Space – Probe Scores Asteroid Dust
Matsumoto, when asked about the project’s main goal, stated that TENGA has “always stood for a world that is full of love and freedom”, reiterating the project’s motto. His dream since the inception of the company, he says, was that TENGA would eventually be used in NASA space missions. This is the reason why the project will also include a state-of-the-art Tenga used for measuring data.
People who back the crowdfunding project will receive stickers, memorial plates, and their very-own rocket-shaped TENGA to enjoy. Pledge enough, and you can even nab your very own replica of the TENGA rocket.
The project was originally scheduled for Summer 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. This summer, they say, they’ll be able to fulfill their heart’s deepest desires and finally shoot for the stars.
