is a retired Japanese TV journalist and professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design. In December 1990, he spent seven days aboard the Mir space station. He became the first person of Japanese nationality to fly in space, and his space mission was the second spaceflight to be commercially sponsored and funded. The amount that the corporation paid for the flight of its employee differs significantly from one source to another (US$28 million, US$25 million, 5 billion yen or US$37 million). Akiyama started training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in October 1989.

Spaceflight

TBS wanted to send the first Japanese person to space in order to boost their TV ratings. Akiyama began cosmonaut training in August 1989 in a deal between TBS and the Soviet Union.

Akiyama's mission marked the first flight of a person of Japanese nationality in space as well as the first commercially sponsored and funded spaceflight of an individual in history. Akiyama also became the first journalist to give live reports from space.

Initially, the TBS TV viewership was high, but by midweek, it declined slightly above normal. Akiyama eventually returned to Earth just over a week later aboard Soyuz TM-10 along with Gennadi Manakov and Gennadi Strekalov on 10 December. While onboard the space station, Akiyama made nightly live broadcasts.

From January 1996, he engaged in organic farming with rice and mushrooms in the Abukuma mountains in the town Takine, near Tamura, Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture.

On 1 November 2011, he became a professor of agriculture at the Faculty of Arts, Kyoto University of Art and Design.

Personal life

Akiyama was married to Kyoko Akiyama, and the couple had a son and a daughter.

  • 1990 – Order of Friendship of Peoples (10 December 1990, Soviet Union), "for the successful implementation of space flight on the orbital research complex Mir"
  • 1991 – Tokyo Metropolitan Cultural Honor award
  • 2011 – Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" (12 April 2011, Russia), "for a great contribution to the development of international cooperation in the field of manned space exploration"

Publications

He made reports in Japanese, which were published later, dedicated to his space flight. He also co-authored articles on the development of space tourism and farming.

  • The Pleasure of Spaceflight, Journal of Space Technology and Science – Vol.9 No.1'93.