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