Toyohiro Akiyama spent most of his early career reporting the news. Then his employer gave him an assignment no journalist had done before: report from space.
Akiyama joined Tokyo Broadcasting System in 1966 and later served as a foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief. On December 2, 1990, he launched aboard the Soviet Soyuz TM-11 spacecraft toward the Mir space station. Contemporary reporting from The Washington Post documented the mission as the first time a journalist had flown into space. Akiyama also became the first Japanese national in space.
He spent roughly eight days in space, broadcasting live reports about weightlessness, space sickness and the view of Earth before returning on Soyuz TM-10.
His career kept changing afterward. Akiyama left TBS in 1995, moved to Fukushima and became an organic farmer. After the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced him from the area, he later taught at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
TBS reported that Akiyama died on August 26, 2026, at age 84.
His career belongs beside other multi-field journeys we have profiled, including Jonny Kim’s path from Navy SEAL to doctor to astronaut, Anousheh Ansari’s path from engineer to technology founder to space explorer, and Kathryn Sullivan’s journey from spacewalker to Challenger Deep.
Akiyama’s story ultimately became much larger than one historic flight: journalist, space correspondent, farmer and professor across four distinct chapters of one career.
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