Toyohiro Akiyama, 1st Japanese to travel to space, dies at 84

Born in Tokyo, Akiyama joined Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc., the precursor of TBS Holdings Inc., as a reporter in 1966. 

After serving as chief of the broadcaster's Washington bureau, he was selected within the company to board a Soyuz spacecraft of the former Soviet Union in December 1990.

While staying aboard the Mir space station, Akiyama carried out experiments, including one involving frogs, and also reported from the station. 

At the beginning of a live broadcast, he famously asked, "Am I on air?"

After leaving the broadcaster in December 1995, Akiyama moved to the town of Takine, now part of the city of Tamura, in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, and engaged in organic farming.

From 2011 to 2018, he served as a professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design, now Kyoto University of the Arts. He then spent his later years in Odai.