He was the backup, the primary reporter was a young woman, but she had a medical emergency shortly before launch.
If you want to know more, Failure To Launch podcast has an excellent episode on this
Comment on Toyohiro Akiyama deserved better
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 12 hours agoWhy was he chosen?
stoy@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
The_v@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Ryoko Kikuchi had appendicitis a week before launch.
She did eventually make it into space however.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
It was a publicity stunt by his employer, a news network, to pay for a Japanese person to go to Mir.