We will continue drilling to reach the ‘universe’ inside the earth

　Whenever I introduce the CHIKYU research in lectures etc., I always show two slides. One is a photograph of the Hayabusa asteroid prob. The Hayabusa travelled 6.4 billion km in space and returned with material from the surface of asteroid Itokawa. Those samples are peridotite, produced at the time when the earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago.
　In short, peridotite, which in the same way tells the story of the origin of the earth and the universe, exists deep beneath our feet. I think of the mantle as the universe existing inside the earth.
The mantle survey is of enormous scientific significance in the same way as space exploration. And that is why the second slide I show is a drawing of the CHIKYU flying in space.
　The CHIKYU drills to the strata deep beneath the seafloor. In a sense that means that it is drilling from the present into the past, but I think that at the same time, it means that it is drilling into the future. In 2015 the CHIKYU will celebrate its 10th anniversary since its completion, but it will further come into its own in the future. It is my hope that we can contribute, with the CHIKYU, to predicting the future of the earth and building the society of the future.