Mission

JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and STS-124 Mission crew members participated in the STS-124 Mission Debriefings in Tokyo, Tsukuba and Nagoya, Japan.

Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide STS-124 Mission Debriefing in Tokyo

JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide participated in the STS-124 Mission Debriefing held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya Public Hall (Tokyo) on July 26, 2008. About 450 people attended the event.

Showing video and photos taken during the mission, astronaut Hoshide provided a commentary explaining how the mission went and what he felt during his stay aboard the ISS to the audience.

In the first part of the event, the STS-124 Mission digest was shown on the hall's large video screen and astronaut Hoshide gave a comment on each scene of the video explaining how the mission went and how was his stay aboard the ISS.

The mission commentary with the digest video was followed by a talk show hosted by Mr. Hidetoshi Togasawa (the Mainichi Newspapers). During the talk show, astronaut Hoshide and Mr. Tokasawa discussed various topics related to Kibo, ISS and the experiments to be performed onboard Kibo in the future.

Astronaut Hoshide mentioned what he felt when he first saw the ISS on orbit, what he thought of the Earth seen from the ISS, or why he became an astronaut.

When He was asked about his goals and vision, astronaut Hoshide answered that he would like to stay aboard the ISS as an ISS Expedition crew member to conduct various experiments. He also said that he hopes to take part in the Moon missions someday in the future.

STS-124 Mission Debriefing in Tsukuba and Nagoya

STS-124 Mission Crew in Tsukuba

STS-124 Mission crew members, Mark Kelly, Kenneth Ham, Karen Nyberg, Ronald Garen, Michael Fossum, Akihiko Hoshide and Garrett Reisman, participated in the STS-124 (1J) Mission Debriefings held at Nova Hall in Tsukuba (Ibaraki) on July 31, 2008, and at Nagoya Congress Center in Nagoya (Aichi) on August 1, 2008.

A total of about 1,000 people attended those events.

After STS-124 Mission Commander, Mark Kelly introduced his crewmembers, the mission overview video was shown on the hall's large screen. Along with the video, Hoshide provided a commentary for each scene.

Hoshide talking about the mission in Nagoya

During his commentary, he mentioned about his feeling and impression on the ISS, saying, "All of us like Kibo's two windows (JEM Windows). The Earth we saw through the JEM Windows was extremely beautiful." "ISS is much wider than the space shuttle, so floating around in the ISS was so much fun."

After the mission overview debriefing, STS-124 Mission crew members received a lot of questions from the audience, such as "what triggered your interest in becoming an astronaut," or "what is the key to becoming an astronaut."

*All times are Japan Standard Time (JST)