For eons, humanity looked up at the night sky, and wondered: what lies out there, in the dark amongst the stars? The dream of travel beyond our earthly domain became reality in the 1960s with the space race.
Suddenly, a whole universe seemed to beckon. In 1990, space flight emerged as a possibility for the average person, as the very first civilian onboard a commercial journey to space took Japanese journalist Akiyama Toyohiro to the realm of the stars. And what did Akiyama have to say of his experience beyond earth?
“I wanted a smoke so bad.”
Few of those who have experienced life in Earth’s outer orbit have been as unlikely as Akiyama Toyohiro. As IFL Science put it, before becoming an astronaut, the TBS journalist’s “most strenuous exercise was said to be lifting his cigarette to his mouth.” He spent much of his time on his way to the Mir space station vomiting, and much of his time in space in a mental fog punctuated by headaches and extreme tobacco cravings.
Akiyama’s time in outer space, as the first Japanese national and journalist to leave Earth, was at once inspiring and bemusing. As the first person sent to outer space for the sole purpose of a TV ratings boost, his story has echoes of “Deep Space Homer,” a satirical Simpsons episode that would air five years later.
However, despite Akiyama’s difficulties, and the jokes made at his expense by the international media, he came away with some insights. And these went beyond realizing that you’re not allowed to light up on a space station.
Japan’s place in space
This may come as a surprise to some abroad, but in outer space, Japan is a pretty big deal. Take it from Saadia Pekkanen, director of University of Washington’s Space Law, Data, and Policy Program:
“Japan is unquestionably one of the world’s preeminent spacefaring nations. It has full-spectrum and independent capabilities in almost all foundational space technologies – liquid and solid-fuel rockets, spacecraft for deep space missions and counterspace capabilities, and a wide range of big and small satellites for Earth observation, communications, and position, navigation, and timing.”
Despite these superlatives, it still took until 1990 for a Japanese national to break the bonds of gravity and reach outer space.
Early lift-off
Japan’s space program was born in the early post-occupation period. From 1945 until 1951, while Japan was under US military occupation following WWII, the Allies disallowed Japan any aeronautics program.
The San Francisco Treaty of 1951 returned the sovereignty of Japan to its people. That allowed the country to push into fields the US occupiers had not previously allowed.
By 1954, University of Tokyo professor and rocketry pioneer Itokawa Hideo, who had formerly designed fighter planes for the imperial army, had started Japan’s first real rocket program. He helped design the diminutive “Pencil Rocket,” now iconic in the Japanese aerospace industry.
By 1970, his former team at UTokyo’s Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science succeeded in launching Japan’s first-ever orbital satellite, the Ōsumi. Japan was now only the 4th ever nation to place its own satellite in orbit. Only the USSR, America, and France had gotten there first.
Japan’s space program was also uniquely peace-oriented, eschewing any movement towards the development of space weaponry and defensive tech. This was in alignment with Japan’s “peace constitution,” the post-war national constitution that outright bans Japan from possessing an offensive military. (Hence why Japan has a “Self Defence Force,” rather than an army or navy.)
In 1969, the country enacted a resolution that “…played well to the broader ‘culture of anti-militarism’ in postwar Japan…to keep debates about the militarization and weaponization of the basic space technologies out of sight.” (Pekkansen.)
Japan and America: Space Partners
While Japan’s national accomplishments regarding spaceflight are among the world’s most impressive, international cooperation was still a major driving force for the industry. And it should come as no surprise that in these same early decades of space flight, the two dominant spacefaring nations were the United States and the Soviet Union. With the post-war relationship between Japan and the US being amongst the strongest in the world, it’s also not shocking that Japan hitched some of their dreams of space to America’s cosmic wagon.
Despite its impressive achievements in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, Japan was not in a position to create its own spacecraft fit to carry a human payload. That meant that for decades, there were Japanese astronauts. Instead, Japanese scientists assisted with America’s Space Shuttle program and collaborated with NASA in the planning of the Space Station Freedom project. (That project faltered but eventually evolved into the International Space Station.)
Disaster
Then, in 1986, came the tragic Challenger disaster.
Thousands of schoolchildren in the United States watched via live television feeds as the orbiter, with its seven crewmembers – including a young teacher selected from a list of 11,000 for the honor of teaching from space – exploded less than two minutes into launch.
The Space Shuttle program was grounded and ceased carrying any commercial payloads. This lessened the chance that anyone out of the Japanese space program would have a chance to fly to space on an American shuttle.
(Onboard Challenger with one Ellison Onizuka, an astronaut and U.S. Air Force flight test engineer who hailed from Hawaii. A third-generation Japanese American, Ellison was an integral crew member on board the successful 1985 spaceflight of the Discovery orbiter. Thus, he was the first person of Japanese descent to reach outer space. Following his tragic death on the Challenger, Ellison Onizuka was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. A small bridge in Ukiha City, Fukuoka, where his father’s family came from, bears his name, and has a memorial plate in his honor.)
If a Japanese astronaut was to make it to space, they’d have to look elsewhere. All this created a path forward for one of the most unlikely men to reach earth orbit: Akiyama Toyohiro.
Akiyama Toyohiro: Japanese astronaut and space’s “anti- hero”
Akiyama Toyohiro (秋山豊寛) was born in Tokyo’s populous Setagaya Ward in 1942 while WWII was raging in nearby swaths of Asia and across distant Europe. He grew up in post-war Tokyo, when Setagaya was seeing a mass population influx as residents from eastern wards fled the devastated landscape of Tokyo’s bombed-out urban core.
As a high-schooler, Akiyama enjoyed practicing rakugo, performing traditional one-man narrative comedy routines. In 1966, he graduated from Tokyo’s International Christian University, which in 1949 had been established as Japan’s very first liberal arts college. He’d majored in social sciences.
(ICU’s origins as a collaborative project between the Bank of Japan, Emperor Hirohito’s brother Prince Takamatsu, and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur are quite interesting – but that’s a story for another time.)
From foreign correspondent to Japanese astronaut
Within a month of graduation, Akiyama went to work at Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. – known as TBS for short. Tokyo’s first privately owned TV station, TBS was a major broadcaster in those relatively early days of TV.
In 1967, Akiyama was sent abroad for the first time, helping produce the BBC World Services’ Japanese-language programming in the UK. This began a long career involved in reporting on foreign affairs. In 1976, Akiyama was one of the first journalists from outside of the Communist world to report from post-Vietnam War Hanoi.
By the late 1980s, Akiyama already had an impressive career under his belt. He was also a chain smoker, putting away four packs a day.
His employers at TBS were riding high on Japan’s economic bubble, which saw corporations with more expendable cash than they knew what to do with. As the company’s 40th anniversary approached, they were looking for a way to make a real celebratory splash – something that would bring in record viewership, to boot.
That’s when a little Soviet space station in Earth orbit came into the picture.
The story of Mir
In 1971, the Soviet Union accomplished something remarkable: the creation of the first space station, Salyut 1. Fifteen years later, the first component parts of a new type of space station, called Mir, launched into the stratosphere.
Mir was the first ever modular space station, allowing for new sections to be brought to space to enlarge the orbiting structure. Mir was a remarkable facility, serving as a microgravity research station. Soyuz-class spaceships continually visited, bringing supplies and fresh cosmonaut crews. The Soyuz ship would then depart, bringing Mir’s cosmonauts safely back to Earth.
The Mir program began during the height of the Cold War, and the USSR and the USA expended massive resources and brainpower to one-up each other in space. By the late 1980s, however, much had changed. The USSR was in steep decline. With the Cold War cooling down, the flow of rubles and dollars into the two empire’s astral programs was reduced to trickle.
From 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was premier of the Soviet Union. Under his watch, the country was entering a period of marked openness, known as glasnost. Secrets once locked away behind the Iron Curtain were suddenly available to the wider world.
A Japanese astronaut gets a ticket
In 1987, amidst this newfound openness, a crew from Tokyo Broadcast Systems arrived at the once top-secret Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, then still a Soviet SSR. The crew is said to have jokingly asked about getting a reporter on board for a rocket launch.
However, to the cash-strapped Soviet space program, this was no joke. Only a few years earlier, the USSR had created an authoritative entity, Glavkosmos, to handle the commercialization of aspects of the Soviet space industry. Those in the USSR had no idea how close the end of their country was – but their system was already veering towards the capitalism of the 1990s.
TBS, firmly in the expense-account-oriented mindset of Japan’s bubble era, saw an exciting opportunity in front of them. Negotiations began on a plan to get a Japanese reporter – and perhaps more importantly, a TBS reporter! – on their way to space.
The price tag kept inflating, but TBS found sponsors in the form of Sony and now-defunct camera manufacturer Minolta. Just what the price ended up at varies depending on the source. Some say $17 million, others as much as $37 million. (That higher value would be around $100,000,000 today.)
News of a Japanese television reporter being allowed on a Soyuz flight caused great consternation among the Soviet press. Why should a non-Soviet be granted the honor of being the first journalist in space? Moscow saw “a noisy campaign” to get a journalist hailing from the USSR on a spaceflight first. However, TBS beat them to it.
And this is how Akiyama Toyohiro found his way as the first Japanese national on a mission to space, in the very last days of the Soviet Union.
A Japanese astronaut visits the Stars through great difficulty (i.e., quitting smoking)
163 intrepid TBS employees volunteered to go to the stars as the first Japanese astronaut for their company. Their number was then wittled to seven finalists, among them Akiyama.
The seven trained at Soviet facilities in Star City, a purpose-built municipality near Moscow. Their health and aptitude for space flight were thoroughly tested. The volunteers entered into g-force modules, parachuted from planes, and engaged in wilderness survival training. They pushed their bodies to the limits.
Akiyama did it all – with a grimace, but he still did it. Already skinny, he lost 33 pounds in the process.
Most stressful of all, though, was the language learning. In order to ride on a Soyuz spacecraft, all passengers had to speak and read Russian. When not engaged in physical training, Akiyama was brushing up on his “Здравствуйте”s and “косми́ческая ста́нция”s, day in, day out. He did all this while living in a small Soviet apartment, longing for Japanese food.
Kikuchi Ryoko – Almost the first Japanese woman in space
Akiyama, then 47, emerged as a frontrunner alongside Kikuchi Ryoko – a 26-year-old and TBS’ sole woman camera operator. Kikuchi engaged in all the onerous training alongside Akiyama, putting her all into becoming what would have been the first Asian woman in space. Alas, she was struck down by appendicitis only a week before launch and had to watch on from a Soviet hospital bed.
(The honor of being the first woman of Asian descent in Space would eventually go to another Japanese astronaut – Mukai Chiaki, in 1994.)
Finally, the program announced Akiyama’s selection to the crew as a Japanese astronaut. In an interview, he said, “I can do it. I can quit drinking alcohol and smoking. Well, I’ll have to quit a lot of things. But I feel like if I can achieve that, I can reorient my whole life well into my 40s.
“I’m 47. Pretty much a normal guy at this point. There aren’t many opportunities for new challenges these days.”
A Japanese astronaut boldly goes
Finally, the day arrived. On December 1st, 1990, the rocket blasted off, with its launch shroud and Soyuz booster emblazoned with the Japanese flag – not to mention advertisements for Japanese corporations Sony, Unicharm, and Otsuka Pharmaceutical.
As the Soyuz entered its initial orbit, a TBS presenter on the ground asked Akiyama for his historic first words. The first utterances of a Japanese astronaut from space came back:
“Is this the real take?”
Two days and two orbital accelerations later, the Soyuz made its dramatic docking with Mir. On the ground in Kazakhstan, Soviet and Japanese officials cheered. Akiyama entered the station, receiving the traditional welcome gift of salt and bread. Floating into the module, he began his eight uncomfortable days on the Mir space station.
Thoughts on the outer reaches
The most impressive sight in Akiyama’s mind was the sunrise, which came every 90 minutes on Mir. The space station orbited Earth almost 16 times in a 24 period, granting the surreal experience of numerous sunrises per day as the star peaked out behind the cover of Earth.
“That place where the earth meets space is truly beautiful. The colors keep shifting, bit by bit, between the blue and the black of space.”
He also gave an unknowing preemptive rebuttal to flat earthers: “And hey, the world really is round!”
Still, Akiyama wasn’t having a great time of it. “You know how after a small fever, when you move any part of your body, your head starts throbbing? It’s like that.”
He was being buffeted by space adaptation syndrome, caused by an inverse of terrestrial motion sickness. Still, he pushed through, successfully clocking his hours of reportage back to Japan, two hundred miles below.
He kept up a shaving routine, wanting to look professional. The space razor sucked the shaved stubble away, preventing it from floating about the cabin. Akiyama didn’t look especially happy during this process.
Food was another issue, with most meals being can-based. The strong flavors and smells didn’t appeal to Akiyama, who said he wished he’d brought up some fresh fruit. He also jokingly bemoaned the lack of chopsticks.
The interstellar adventures of the space frogs
Akiyama would not be the only Japanese astronaut in space. However, his companions weren’t of the human variety.
Akiyama had brought along Japanese frogs, part of an experiment to see how the animals would react in zero-g. They spent much of their time floating about, legs outstretched, or looking around frantically while clasping onto a surface. Akiyama engaged in physical tests of his own, including equilibrium testing to see if he could write out kanji characters on a square surface blindfolded.
He also created his own lighthearted experiments, seeing what it would be like to play kendama in space. His obvious conclusion: a game based around using gravity and timing to your advantage isn’t much fun without the gravity. He played around with other traditional toys and even used uchiwa paper fans, one held in each outstretched arm, as makeshift wings, becoming something like a Japanese astronaut birdman.
During regular reportage, though, he often looked uncomfortable and had a hard time finding his bearings. Meanwhile, Soyuz Captain Viktor Afanasiev would spin around in the background, showing off what a practiced occupant of zero-g really looked like.
The return
On December 10th, 1990, it was finally time for Akiyama to return to Earth. His time on Mir, rightly called a “business trip,” had been a mere week. Most Soviet cosmonauts stayed for many months; some more than a year.
He boarded the Soyuz alongside its two Soviet crew and bid the space station farewell. The ship’s orbital and service modules detached, burning up in the atmosphere as the descent module’s blast shield took the brunt of the heat for the descending astronauts.
The module landed safely in Kazakhstan, where a TBS crew waited with bated breath for Akiyama to emerge. Finally, his head poked out, a pained smile on his face. When the TV crew asked him how he felt, he uttered the lines that proved you can take the salaryman out of the earth, but you can’t take the earth out of the salaryman.
“I want to eat something that actually tastes good, and I want a smoke. I want to drink a beer, too. I’ve arrived back to Earth as a lump of various desires.”
All treefrogs had survived reentry.
A Japanese astronaut comes back to ground
TBS’s televised space experiment saw mixed results. Huge sums had been expended for the spaceflight, advertising, and more. However, strong initial viewership dwindled to only slightly above-average as Akiyama’s days on Mir continued. TBS had put the first Japanese national in space, but the story came and went.
Reactions abroad were mixed, coming at a time when Japan’s ascendant economic place in the world had many nations on edge. US coverage tended to be pejorative, jumping on Akiyama’s less-than-enthused demeanor.
The New York Times wrote of “A Japanese Innovation: The Space Antihero.” Their coverage began: “For those who complain that Japanese exploit Western technology without contributing much basic research in return, here are a few of this week’s discoveries from Japan’s first manned mission into space…” before joking about the value of Akiyama’s frog studies. The very of-its time coverage continued with “…For the devoted viewer the mission has generated a steady trickle of informative tidbits, especially for Japanese who see space as the ultimate real estate opportunity once Hawaii gets too expensive.”
Fifteen years later, author David M. Harland, writing his history of Mir, called Akiyama “the stereotypical Japanese tourist.” Akiyama, he wrote, “brought with him half a dozen cameras and a hundred rolls of film.”
Japanese astronaut Aikiyama: Toyohiro: Anti-hero – or just hero?
However, back in Japan, some still think of Akiyama’s adventure with fondness. The viewership may have faded over that week, but Akiyama still inspired Japanese viewers on the ground. Modern-day comments on videos of Akiyama’s flight include those like this:
“As of today (December 2nd, 2020), it’s now been exactly thirty years. Back when I was a kid, I loved space, and I cheered him on while watching the whole thing live! They featured a primetime special broadcast about Mr. Akiyama every day until he came home. It really was amazing…”
Where no frog has gone before
Japan’s spaceflight capabilities and the role of Japanese astronauts have only increased since 1990. Commercial space flight has continued to play its role. In fact, Japanese astronauts were part of the first two successful missions to the ISS by SpaceX.
Akiyama, for his part, has had an eventful life back on earth. Viewing the planet from above, he felt the need to return to something more primal. He left TBS in 1995, starting a mushroom farm in Fukushima Prefecture. In 2011, the Tohoku earthquake triple disaster brought all that to an end. Now, he works as a professor of agriculture at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Despite his desire for beer and cigarettes, Akiyama came away from his experience with deep thoughts.
“No matter how many times I saw it, I was impressed by how blue the earth was. Back when Gagarin said ‘the Earth was blue,’ that quote was never carried in the Japanese media of my youth. It could have been quite the catchphrase.
“My generation lived through the Cuban Missle Crisis… In the ’60s, in our college years, we really thought the world might end. But the words ‘ the Earth was blue…’ I’m sure they filled the hearts of those that lived during those rough years. That’s why I think being able to see that blue sphere for myself had such an effect on me.”
The Cold War is over, but the world is not at peace. Russia and Japan have a worse relationship now than they did in the dying days of the Soviet Union. But the world is still blue. And, hopefully, somewhere out there, Akiyama Toyohiro is enjoying a cigarette and a beer, gazing up at the night sky.
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Sources
[1] Pekkanen, S. M. (2023). Space and the US–Japan alliance: reflections on Japan’s geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 24(1), 64–79.
(2019/11/23). 初めて宇宙に行った日本人が“ミール”の窓から見た「宇宙で最も美しい夜明け」. 文春オンライン.
(2 December 2017). 日本人初の宇宙飛行士、秋山さんが語る！ 「私が選ばれた」真相. Weathernews.jp.
David E. Sanger (8 December 1990). “A Japanese Innovation: The Space Antihero”. The New York Times. Archived from the original.
