Toyohiro Akiyama, the first Japanese citizen to travel to space and the world’s first journalist to file reports during a spaceflight, has died at the age of 84. Akiyama passed away on Wednesday, August 26, from lower gastrointestinal bleeding, according to news agencies in Japan. A funeral was held with close relatives in attendance.
Beyond his historic status as the first Japanese national to reach orbit, Akiyama also holds the distinction of being the first commercially sponsored space traveler. Working as a correspondent for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), he was selected from among 162 fellow employees who applied for the opportunity, part of a campaign marking the network’s 40th anniversary.
A Sponsored Mission to Mir
Akiyama trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside Moscow, and was assigned to the Soyuz TM-11 crew. On December 2, 1990, he launched alongside Soviet-era cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov aboard a Soyuz U2 rocket decorated with the Japanese flag and advertisements from several Japanese companies, including Sony.
Following a nine-minute ascent, filmed on board for TBS broadcast, and a two-day rendezvous, the crew reached the Mir space station. Afanasyev and Manarov started a 175-day stay as part of the outpost’s 11th expedition, while Akiyama remained aboard for roughly a week.
During his stay, Akiyama recorded a 10-minute video and two 20-minute audio segments each day. These “To the Universe” broadcasts aired on TBS. Early on, however, he struggled with space adaptation syndrome, commonly known as space sickness, along with nicotine withdrawal, as he was a heavy cigarette smoker. His initial reports reflected that discomfort.
He described the water around Japan as looking “very muddy” and joked that only the “fat” tree frogs sent from his country seemed to enjoy weightlessness. As the mission continued, Akiyama apologized for his mood and shared footage of Mount Fuji, delighting viewers. He noted that most of Japan “looks like it has moss all over,” except for the northern island of Hokkaido, which “looks like delicious kelp.”
A Costly Media Experiment
Japanese audiences initially tuned in daily, but interest faded as the week went on. TBS had hoped its investment in the mission, reported at between EUR 10 million and EUR 32 million, would elevate the network’s international standing. Aside from a brief spike in viewership, those ambitions largely went unrealized.
Akiyama returned to Earth on December 10, 1990, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan aboard Soyuz TM-10 with cosmonauts Gennadi Manakov and Gennady Strekalov. He logged a total of seven days, 21 hours, and 54 minutes on his first and only spaceflight.
Akiyama was born on July 22, 1942, in Tokyo. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the International Christian University in Mitaka, Tokyo,
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Image: arstechnica.com
