Japanese surgeon’s dream to become an astronaut finally came true

Have you heard the news about 古川聡さん (Satoshi Furukawa)?

He was born in Yokohama and graduated from the prestigious 「東京大学」 (University of Tokyo)　with a medical degree in in 1989 (at the age of 25).

From 1989 until 1999, he worked as a 外科医 (surgeon) in various hospitals around Tokyo.

Then, in 1999 (at the age of 35), he was accepted by the Japanese Space Agency for astronaut training for the potential chance to work at the International Space Station.

Ten years ago, in 2001, Dr. Furukawa successfully completed his training and was certified as an 宇宙飛行士 (astronaut).

Dr. Satoshi Furukawa, surgeon / astronaut

Since becoming certified as an astronaut, Dr. Furukawa has spent the past ten years working for Japan’s Space Agency and he completed training at Russia’s cosmonaut training center and also at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Well, two days ago (2011 June 7), at the age of 47, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa finally saw his dream to work on the International Space Station come true.

Dr. Furukawa of Japan, Sergey Volkov of Russia, and Michael Fossum were onboard a Russian rocket that launched on June 7 from Russia and will dock at the International Space Station sometime today (2011 June 9).
The three astronauts (cosmonaut) are scheduled to work on the space station until sometime in 2011 November and then they’ll return home.

Patch for the current ISS mission of astronauts Furukawa, Fossum and Volkov

News in Japan

Four news stories that I saw on the TV news today:

①　The Space Shuttle Discovery launched today for a 13-day mission. On board is the first astronaut that is also a Japanese mother…39 year old Naoko Yamazaki.

Naoko Yamazaki

She began her astronaut training in Japan ten years ago, but had to relocate to America in 2004 to continue her training. Her husband gave up his career in Japan when they moved to America so he could stay at home and raise their daughter.

②　Yesterday afternoon in Saga, Japan, a group of young children were playing near a concrete barrier at the ocean’s edge, when suddenly a four-year old boy fell into the water.
Without hesitation, his ten-year old older brother jumped into the water to save him.
Both boys were unconscious when they were pulled from the water by rescue workers.
The younger boy recovered but his older brother who tried to save him died at the hospital.

③　In Chiba, Japan yesterday, some cruel person removed the antlers of an eight year old goat at a farm.
The goat was found bleeding profusely from his head wounds and was shaking violently.
The farmer took him to a veterinarian who bandaged the animal’s head. But the poor goat is still shaking and is now terrified of people.

④　But some people can be nice to animals.
A sixteen-year old high school girl in Yamaguchi, Japan found a dog that had been hit by a car and left bleeding in the street.
She took the dog to an animal shelter. The doctors at the shelter helped the dog, but they told the girl that if the dog’s owner doesn’t claim it within two weeks, it would have to be put to sleep.

The girl had her friends help her make fliers to find the dog’s owner and she sent photos of the dog to everyone she knew via email and had them forward the email because she didn’t want to see the dog she just helped save be put to death.

Her hard work paid off. The owner of the dog saw one of her fliers and recognized her dog, “Ai-chan”. The owner said she had been searching frantically since her dog went missing.

The dog was rescued by her owner just in time. She was collected from the shelter on March 13…one day before she was scheduled to be put to sleep.

The girl (second from left) that found the dog and her friends showing the fliers they made.

August 1st birthdays

As I mentioned in the previous post, today is my oldest daughter’s sixteenth birthday.

On the day she was born in 1993, the TV news here in Japan showed two Japanese twins who had become famous a year earlier because the both turned 100 years old.
The day my first baby was born these twins turned 101.

Their names were 「成田きん」 (Kin Narita) and 「蟹江ぎん」 (Gin Kanie). After they became famous all over Japan, they often did TV commercials in the early – mid ’90s.
As a term of affection, they were called 「キンさん、ギンさん」 (“Kin-san, Gin-san“).

「キンさん、ギンさん」 (“Kin-san, Gin-san“) were born on 1892 August 1 and lived to be 107 and 108 years old, respectively.

「キンさん、ギンさん」 ("Kin-san, Gin-san"). (Their names mean "Gold" and "Silver")

I knew since the day my oldest daughter was born that 「キンさん、ギンさん」 (“Kin-san, Gin-san“) shared a birthday with her.

But I found out today that the Japanese astronaut, 若田光一 (Koichi Wakata), who just came back to Earth from a mission with the Space Shuttle Endeavour also has the same birthday as my daughter.

He was born on 1963 August 1.

So he returned from his mission in space just in time to celebrate his birthday on Earth. The first thing he did was eat 寿司 (sushi).

The Original Moon Walk

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first and only* manned landing on the moon. *(I’ve been corrected).

On Sunday, 1969 July 20, the world watched on live television as the Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong exited the craft and walked on the surface of the moon and planted the American flag and said his famous line:

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong (RIP August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)

I was born in 1969, a few months after this occurred…so I have no experience seeing it.
How about you? Did you see man land on the moon in July 1969?

***

I didn’t see the Apollo 11 land on the moon…but I grew up in Florida and I remember the first reusable Space Shuttle. It was the “Space Shuttle Columbia” and it flew it’s first mission in 1981.

Since I grew up in Florida, which is where NASA launches the Space Shuttles from, my high school used to have all of the students and teachers go outside whenever a Space Shuttle was scheduled to be launched because we could watch it in the sky from the schoolyard.

Since we were teenagers, most of us were bored of watching every single Space Shuttle launch. So on Tuesday, 1986 January 28, I remember being outside to watch another launch…this time of the Space Shuttle Challenger (which had the first female astronaut and Japanese-American astronaut on board).

It was just another launch to us teenagers…until it exploded in midair!

We all ran inside and turned on the television news.
All seven of the crew perished in that tragedy.

RIP.

(Also, the entire crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia (the original Space Shuttle) died when the craft disintegrated on re-entry in 2003).