JAPANESE COSMONAUT'S OBSERVATIONS FROM SPACE

This document is a TASS press cable dated December 6, 1990, reporting on a press conference held at a mission control center near Moscow. The conference featured Japanese television reporter and cosmonaut Toyehiro Akiyama, who had recently joined the crew of the Mir space station alongside Soviet cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov. Akiyama discussed his initial experiences with weightlessness and his visual observations of Earth from orbit, noting concerns about haze over Japan and the United States. During the briefing, Soviet cosmonaut Gennadiy Strekalov reported that the crew had observed a 'huge ball of light' for seven minutes on September 26. Strekalov stated that this event was likely an unknown natural phenomenon. The document also mentions the presence of the stand-by crew, including Anatoliy Artsebarsky, Sergey Krikalev, and Riyoko Tikuti.