Yamazaki is the second Japanese female and Japan’s first mother to go into space. In 1999, she joined the National Space Development Agency of Japan, currently the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and participated in an International Space Station (ISS) assembly and resupply mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in April 2010.

“To be an astronaut was my dream from my childhood,” Yamazaki said. She was a girl who liked to stargaze and loved the TV anime series “Uchu Senkan Yamato” (“Space Battleship Yamato”), which became the TV animation series “Star Blazers” in the U.S. in the late 1970s.

When she was in junior high school, she saw the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on TV, which broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, in 1986. Though it came as a shock to the teenager, she realized at that time that space travel is not something that only exists in science fiction, and she eventually felt that she wanted to fulfill the mission of those who died in the accident.

However, it took 11 years before she was selected as an astronaut candidate to go into space.

She had to go through an extensive training program to prepare for her space mission, and she said 90 percent of the training was how to deal with unexpected accidents.

One part of the program was survival training in Russia during a bitterly cold winter on the assumption that a Russian Soyuz spacecraft had landed in a snowy field hundreds of kilometers away from the planned landing site.

“Under such circumstances, a rescue team would not be able to reach us quickly, and we had to survive for three days with just items from the spacecraft,” Yamazaki said.

Using an axe from the Soyuz capsule, Yamazaki and her fellow astronauts chopped wood and made a small fire. They were also told not to consume any food on the first day as they only had three days worth of food and they might have to survive for longer. The temperature was about minus 20 degrees Celsius and it was freezing cold, she said.

Another requirement for astronauts was to swim at least 75 meters while fully clothed and tread water for 10 minutes while also clothed.

Yamazaki said that she didn’t have any problems at all during the training and in space as a female astronaut, but as a mother, how to manage astronaut training and child-rearing could sometimes be difficult.

“I had to get a lot of support from my husband, colleagues and friends in the neighborhood, as well as people in JAXA and NASA to take care of my daughter,” she said, adding that it would not have been possible without their support. Thanks to NASA’s family support program, she often used their consulting service to discuss family-related issues.

After such a lengthy training period, her longtime dream finally came true on April 5, 2010.

Asked how she felt when she left the Earth, she said it only took eight and a half minutes after launch to reach space.

“As soon as we reached space, I looked through the window and saw the Earth shining,” she said. “It was blue and shining, and I felt like the Earth itself was alive. I could see blue in the ocean in contrast with very white clouds during the day, and they shone more in the sunlight. It was more beautiful than I had imagined.”

During the 15 days in space, her main job was to send necessary supplies to the ISS, which was nearing completion. She operated the robotic arms to install the logistics module called Leonardo carried on the space shuttle. After installation, she delivered equipment for experiments to the station.

She said the space shuttle orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.

“You see the sunrise and sunset 16 times each day, and it was hard to keep track of time,” the former astronaut said.

Yamazaki, who is now involved in policy-making as a member of the Cabinet Office’s Space Policy Committee, said space development activities by Japan will further increase this year and beyond.

In 2017, the Japanese government adopted a policy package “Space Industry Vision 2030,” in which Japan aims to double the market scale of the domestic space industry by as early as the 2030s.

Yamazaki said compared to other countries, Japan has comprehensive strength in space development with its advanced rocket launching technology, experience in sending astronauts to the ISS for long periods and space probes like the Hayabusa2, which is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by JAXA.

The latest success in bringing back experiment results from the ISS using a capsule ejected from space cargo vessel Konotori was also a significant step for Japan’s space industry, she said.

“If we can apply this technology to a larger manned mission, this may enable us to send people to space and bring them back to Earth,” she said.

The U.S., Russia and China already have such technology to collect individuals and objects from Earth’s orbit and send them back to Earth.

“But it is only Lockheed Martin Corp. and Japan that have the ability to collect objects from the moon, Mars and asteroids beyond the Earth’s orbit, and that’s why this Japanese technology stands out,” she said.

Yamazaki hopes that more and more companies and people will be able to utilize space and its assets such as images and data captured by satellites in the future.

“We are now exchanging opinions with people in different industries, including those in agriculture, distribution and marine products, where we didn’t have close contact before,” she said. “It’s an exciting time.”