Well, *I* think it’s newsworthy, Part II: supplemental
typed for your pleasure on 21 August 2006, at 5.35 pmSdtrk: ‘Going south’ by Indian jewelry
So I’d done a post last year about Daisuke ‘Dice-K’ Enomoto, who would’ve been the first otaku in space. What d’ye mean, you don’t recall? (Actually, I was suprised myself that that was written almost a whole year ago..)
Well, turns out he can’t go. His mum wouldn’t sign his permission slip, the poor bastard.
I suppose he can blame this on the misfortune of his birth
Health test defeats space tourist
BBC News | Monday, 21 August 2006, 16:18 GMT 17:18 UKA Japanese businessman hoping to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) has failed his medical test, according to Russian space agency officials.
Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, 34, was hoping to become the fourth space tourist after being chosen to fly on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
He was due to accompany the 14th space station crew on a flight next month.
Previous private space explorers are Americans Dennis Tito and Greg Olsen and South African Mark Shuttleworth.
Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman Igor Panarin said that Enomoto was “deemed not ready to fly for exclusively medical reasons”.
He was due to begin the journey on 14 September with US commander Miguel Lopez-Alegria and Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin.
the rest of the article is here
Medical reasons are the exact sort of thing that’ll probably end up keeping a lot of us trapped on earth, instead of being spacebound. I want to be a Newtype too, damnit!
As an aside, I love the illo that someone drew of him that he’s got on his website, as reprinted above. Of course, it’s a lot funnier if you’re a Gundam fan, but nevertheless
EDIT (23 Aug): Changed the news article links to the BBC News page. Why? Cos if you look at the photo they have of Dice-K, you’ll see a Zeon patch on the right shoulder of his flightsuit. Very savvy
Technorati tags: Daisuke Enomoto, Dice-K, Gundam, Char Aznable, cosplay, space tourist
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August 22nd, 2006 at 11.01 am
Dice-K’s glorious mission has crashed and burned like Livedoor stock!
Surely the Russian Embassy in Tokyo is being besieged by mobs of protesting Gundam otaku. I would check, honest, but it’s on the other side of the city.
Whither Dicey now?
August 22nd, 2006 at 5.05 pm
Part of me believes that the Space Agency was like, ‘He wants to do what when he’s up there?? Ohh no no, we’d better nip that sort of thing in the bud right now.’ The Powers that Be, and all that. What, are you people mad?? Don’t get Char pissed off at you!!
From what I gather, though, Dice-K will probably be able to make another flight in a number of months. That’s plenty of time to make sure his costume looks good. 🙂 He’s already got the blonde hair..