Soyuz TM-11: live from orbit
Soyuz TM-11 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soviet Union, bound for the space station Mir. Aboard the Soyuz is a crew of three: cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, with Tokyo Broadcasting System reporter Toyohiro Akiyama, who transmits live reports from Mir for the duration of his week in orbit. (Akiyama will return to Earth with the Soyuz TM-10 crew.) Akiyama is the first space traveler whose seat has been commercially bought and paid for, a flight which ignites the “space tourism” industry built around buying Soyuz seats. Afanasyev and Manarov remain in orbit for 175 days, returning to Earth with British space traveler Helen Sharman in May 1991.
STS-35
Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off for an eight-day mission to become a manned space telescope in Earth orbit, carrying the ASTRO-1 package designed to conduct X-ray and ultraviolet astronomy, mounted on an unmanned Spacelab pallet in the cargo bay. The mission has been delayed for months, most notably by hydrogen leaks detected long before the original May launch date. Manning Columbia for this flight are Commander Vance Brand, Pilot Guy Gardner, mission specialists Jeffrey Hoffman, John Lounge and Robert Parker, and payload specialists Samuel Durrance and Ronald Parise.