• It's impressive! ISS Assembly diagram
  • Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki will be on board the space shuttle Discovery on Monday, April 5. She is the very first Japanese woman who goes to International Space Station (ISS). Also, Astro Yamazaki is the first Japanese female mission specialist. She will stay in ISS for about two weeks, and use the robotics arms for detaching the multipurpose replenishment module from the shuttle and its re-installation. Moreover, first "face-to-face encounter in space" as Japanese will be achieved by another Japanese astronaut Satoshi Noguchi who is currently on his mission at ISS since December, 2009.
    As Vice-Commanding General of the Young Astronauts Club (YAC) in Tokyo, Japan, Naoko wishes to show the kids how wonderful the space is. Staff of the Space Online School (SOS, honorary president Reiji Matsumoto) whose mission is to educate the young people, visited JFS where Naoko was receiving her training and interviewed her on her feelings before her departure to the space and the training. Based on the report, by wishing Astro Yamazaki’s best, we planned this "Live Stream send-off ceremony" with the supporters from Japan-U.S. Forum. A lot of wishes will be delivered for Naoko on the live streaming.
    These messages are from the SOS guest lecturers from NASA, JPL, and various universities, our honorary president Reiji Matsumoto, the intellectuals, such as Akutagawa Award winning writer, Fumiko Kometani, and many students from Japan and U.S. Jun’ichi Akiba Hiroshima mayor also sent her a message of "The earth is one round life without the borders or territories". In addition, the unique wishes were sent by the consul general of Los Angeles, Junichi Ihara who called himself "Acrophobia".
    At Saturday, April 3, at noon in Japan standard time (8:00PM, April 2nd of the U.S. Pacific Standard Time), we begin the live stream by Astro Yamazaki's special lecture in Los Angeles (for space science day 2009) and honorary president Matsumoto’s message before the send-off ceremony. We hope to capture the beautiful earth and the appearance of Astro Noguchi inboard. The program runs 40 min. Movies of the send-off ceremony will be available online at http://www.liveforum.org
    Organizer: The Japan-US Live Forum and Space Online School (honorary president Reiji Matsumoto)
    Representative: Producer Masahiro Kimura (Phone: 310-951-0923)