I'm going to get analytical for a moment, so bear with me...

Given that the school's mission is to train future astronauts, one would expect its admission requirements to include a set of physical standards that must be met. In other words, one would assume a 4'7" girl like Asumi wouldn't be admitted - yet, she was. But, beyond that, the idea that acquiring a proper spacesuit for someone Asumi's size would give rise to such a budgetary crisis seems awfully silly. Shouldn't there be room in the budget for such circumstances?

Yes, I know this is all inconsequential as far as the story is concerned, but it affects how seriously I take the show. The appearance of Sano-sensei as some sort of villain still leaves me groaning - even more so now that it seems some sort of background conspiracy against Asumi is afoot. I can't decide if it's an important story element, or merely a device to make one pity Asumi even more.

Of course, we know this is all fictional, but I didn't think it was quite that far-fetched. It felt like the entire course was assembled in a makeshift fashion, and the only reason they have spacesuits at all is because the Japanese government gave them their old ones. The fact that the space suits are the first piece of real technology we've seen all show kind of suggests how little of a budget they're working off of in the first place, and since it's the first year, they probably didn't realize how much trouble an excessively short student would be until she had already gotten far into the applications process.

Plus, she was admitted with support from the faculty. It's not like just any short girl could walk in and get into the course.

And, of course, since they were using the old suits dumped on them by the government, they never expected that they'd have to actually pay for an extra suit, and one at an uncommon size for that matter.

i have the feeling that Sano-sensei has had problems with Azumi's father or something, that this is some kind of grudge against his family members.

I forgot about the school being in its first year. And, looking back on what I wrote, I'm definitely thinking too hard about it all. Perhaps I was in a bad mood (or just a little bored with the episode).

Whatever the issue is involving Asumi's family (her father, at least) and certain members of the school, I hope it's substantial. My initial worry was that it was just a way to give Asumi more adversity to deal with, as Sano-sensei's introduction seemed rather artificial. But, once again, I'm probably thinking too hard about it all.

There's a lot more story on that coming up, including another look into the past...

I haven't seen past episode 14 though, but I loved how it played out. I'll let you find out what happens for yourself, though.

A bit of clarification, though - the school itself is not in its first year, but the Astronaut Training Course is.

What's interesting is that, given how expensive spacesuits are in real life, I don't think that even if all of the teachers gave up all of their salary, there would be enough there to buy an actual spacesuit. Maybe there would be, but it would probably be very close.