Japan has low cost of living

Only in the rural areas where people struggle to get jobs. Where the jobs are, in the cities, cost is extremely high. If you’re a digital nomad then you can use your money from other sources to live cheaply in the Japanese countryside.

If NASA was able to be completely decoupled from the military industrial complex, you might have a point. But as it stands, whatever they discover, especially if it turns out to be tactically advantageous, will immediately be classified and used only for secret military shit.