Toyohiro Akiyama deserved better

Comments

• EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Life in space is hard. When your stomach contents are physically incapable of settling, getting sick to your stomach is easy. Going from a lot of a physically addictive substance to no physically addictive substance makes one unhappy. Tons of people justify their shitty attitudes on the morning by saying “you know not to talk to me before I’ve drank my physically addictive stimulant in a mug” and acting like that’s normal.

  Anyone who thinks this man wasn’t deserving of being there over those things, I daresay would be just as miserable.

  I’d be stoked for the sights and experience in general, but I’m not going to pretend it would all be roses and sunshine.

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• Broadfern@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Badass and relatable? Hell yeah

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• Noite_Etion@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Akiyama was not a trained astronaut, scientist nor engineer. During his time aboard Mir, Akiyama gave live reports each day documenting life aboard the station, but his apparent discomfort led to him being described as the first “antihero in space”. He described his struggles such as space sickness and craving for cigarettes: During training, he quit smoking cigarettes, having previously smoked four packs a day. Before liftoff, when asked what he looked forward to most upon his return to Earth, he said “I can’t wait to have a smoke”.

  Pulled from Wikipedia.

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  • errer@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    After consideration, I think it’s fair he’s remembered for getting space sick and wanting a cigarette…

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  • espentan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Akiyama was not a trained astronaut..

    Okay.

    During training..

    I guess that training was unrelated to astronaut activities.

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    • akwd169@sh.itjust.works ⁨24⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Just because he was given training on what and what not to do, does not make him an astronaut…

      Astronauts have way more training than just a crash course in how to not fuck everything up

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  • acockworkorange@mander.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Why was he chosen?

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    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It was a publicity stunt by his employer, a news network, to pay for a Japanese person to go to Mir.

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    • stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      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

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  • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How often do you have to light up to smoke 4 packs a day? Holy shit, at my heaviest I smoked a pack and a half. Space sick sounds fucking miserable. Of course he wanted a fucking smoke.

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    • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Answering myself, I did the math and I think I did it right, you’d have to light one every 18 minutes if you didn’t sleep. I’m assuming this guy sleeps sometime so he had to be a straight up chain smoker.

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  • Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The standard cigarettes in the UK are 20 packs of Super King size. Assuming it’s the same in Japan:

    At 24 hours in a day, 8 hours of sleep, that leaves 16 hours awake.

    20 x 4 = 80 cigarettes

    80 cigarettes in 16 hours is one every 12 minutes. Considering a cigarette takes about 5 minutes to smoke, that’s almost as much time with a cigarette as without. The entire time he’s awake.

    And he thought he could just give that up for a jaunt in space? No wonder he hated it!

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    • DrBob@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I used to smoke two packs a day sometimes - usually when I was out drinking in which case I was constantly smoking and up late.

      I knew a 3 pack a day smoker. He managed it by always having a lit cigarette. But sometimes he’d forget about one in the ashtray and light another one. I saw him a few times forget about the second one in the ashtray and light a third.

      It honestly seemed like a compulsive lighting habit, if he didn’t have one in his hand he’d light one without thinking about it before looking in the ashtray. You could get a carton (10 packs of 20) for $25 and I made around $8 an hour then.

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    • Lumisal@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You didn’t count eating times or something like a shower. So he either also smoked while eating or while showering, or never went without a cigarette

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    • Akasazh@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      What is the cost of a pack in Japan? When I quit I was at a pack a day, choosing me around 300 euro.

      edit. The cost is around 5 dollar, so that’s 20 dollars a day just on smokes. Holy cow

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