Toyohiro Akiyama, first Japanese citizen and journalist in space, dies at 84

The first Japanese citizen to launch into space, Toyohiro Akiyama was also the first commercially sponsored cosmonaut and the world’s first journalist to file reports while on a spaceflight. Akiyama, 84, died last Wednesday, August 26, of lower gastrointestinal bleeding, news agencies in Japan reported. A funeral was held with his close relatives in attendance. As a correspondent for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), Akiyama was chosen out of his 162 fellow employees who applied to fly to space in celebration of the network’s 40th anniversary. He trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, located outside of Moscow, and was assigned to the Soyuz TM-11 crew. On December 2, 1990, Akiyama lifted off with Soviet-era cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov atop a Soyuz U2 rocket that had been adorned with the Japanese flag and ads from various Japanese companies, including Sony. After a nine-minute ascent—which was filmed on board for TBS to broadcast—and a two-day rendezvous, the three crew members arrived at the Mir space station. Afanasyev and Manarov began a 175-day stay as part of the outpost’s 11th expedition. Akiyama’s time aboard Mir was only a week long. Every day he recorded a 10-minute video and two 20-minute audio spots. These “To the Universe” broadcasts were aired on TBS. Unfortunately, Akiyama initially became very nauseous, suffering from both space adaptation syndrome (also known as “space sickness”) and nicotine withdrawal (he was a chain cigarette smoker) leading to his early accounts of spaceflight being less than enthusiastic. At first, the Japanese public responded by tuning in daily, but as the week went by, interest dwindled. TBS had hoped its investment in Akiyama’s mission—reported to be between $12 million and $37 million (US)—would raise its international profile, but other than a brief bump in viewership, the corporation’s plans did not pan out. Akiyama landed back on Earth on December 10, 1990, touching down on the steppe of Kazakhstan with cosmonauts Gennadi Manakov and Gennady Strekalov on board Soyuz TM-10. Akiyama logged seven days, 21 hours, and 54 minutes on his first and only spaceflight. Toyohiro Akiyama was born on July 22, 1942, in Tokyo. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the International Christian University in Mitaka, Tokyo, before joining TBS. From 1967 to 1971, he worked for the BBC World Service and then became a correspondent for the TBS division of foreign news. He was the network’s chief correspondent in Washington, DC, for the four years leading up to his spaceflight. Akiyama was the 239th person to orbit Earth and 246th to cross the boundary into space (including suborbital fliers), according to the Registry of Space Travelers by the Association of Space Explorers. The first Japanese career astronaut to reach space and orbit Earth was Mamoru Mohri, who followed Akiyama two years later. (Mohri was expected to be first, but the Challenger tragedy in 1986 delayed his flight on the US space shuttle.)