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

He reported from space that only “fat” Japanese tree frogs enjoyed weightlessness. 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 adaptat