is a Japanese

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and veteran of two

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

missions. Doi holds a doctorate from the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

in aerospace engineering, and has studied and published in the fields of propulsion systems and

microgravity The term micro-g environment (also μg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is more or less synonymous with the terms ''weightlessness'' and ''zero-g'', but emphasising that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small (on the I ...

technology. He researched at the

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) is a Japanese national research organization of astrophysics using rockets, astronomical satellites and interplanetary probes which played a major role in Japan's space development. Since 2003, it is a division of Japan Aerospace E ...

and was selected by

NASDA The , or NASDA, was a Japanese national space agency established on October 1, 1969 under the National Space Development Agency Law only for peaceful purposes. Based on the Space Development Program enacted by the Minister of Education, Culture, ...

as an astronaut candidate in 1985 for the Japanese manned space program while also conducting research in the United States at NASA's

Lewis Research Center NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facilit ...

and the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...

. Doi flew as a mission specialist aboard

STS-87 STS-87 was a Space Shuttle mission launched from Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center on 19 November 1997. It was the 88th flight of the Space Shuttle and the 24th flight of ''Columbia''. The mission goals were to conduct experiments us ...

in 1997, during which he became the first Japanese astronaut to conduct a spacewalk. He received a Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of Tokyo, and also a PhD in Astronomy from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

in 2004. Takao Doi visited the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

in March 2008 as a member of the STS-123 crew. STS-123 delivered the first module of the Japanese laboratory, Kibō, and the Canadian

Dextre Dextre, also known as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM), is a two armed robot, or telemanipulator, which is part of the Mobile Servicing System on the International Space Station (ISS), and does repairs that would otherwise r ...

robot to the space station. During this mission, he became the first person to throw a boomerang in space that had been specifically designed for use in microgravity during spaceflight. In September 2009, Doi retired from astronaut duty and started working as the chief of Space Applications Section of

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is an office of the U.N. Secretariat that promotes and facilitates peaceful international cooperation in outer space. It works to establish or strengthen the legal and regulatory framew ...

. In April 2016, he became a professor at the Unit of Synergetic Studies for Space of

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

and then at the Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS) in April 2020. As an avid amateur astronomer, he discovered supernovae SN 2002gw and SN 2007aa.

References

External links

*
Spacefacts biography of Takao Doi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doi, Takao Japanese astronauts Japanese aerospace engineers University of Tokyo alumni University of Colorado alumni 1954 births Living people Rice University alumni Space Shuttle program astronauts Discoverers of supernovae Spacewalkers