Korean Astronaut Program

Infobox Korean name
tablewidth=275


caption=
hangul=한국우주인배출사업
hanja=韓國宇宙人排出事業
rr=Hanguk ujuin baechul saeop
mr=Hankuk uchuin paech'ul saŏp|The Korean Astronaut Program is an initiative by the South Korean government to send the first Korean into space.

Program overview

On December 25, 2006, two candidates, one woman and one man, were selected during a ceremony held at SBS television center in Dungchon-dong, Seoul. This choice was the result of a comprehensive selection process which started with the screening of 36,000 applications. [http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200612/kt2006122521203411810.htm]

*Ko San (30, male, unmarried, researcher at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/international/english/go_san.htm]
*Yi So-yeon (28, female, unmarried, researcher at the KAIST) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/international/english/lee_so-hyun.htm]

This winning pair was sent to Russia early 2007 to undergo a 15-month training course at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. One of them will travel to the International Space Station in April 2008 aboard Soyuz TMA-12, where he or she will spend about ten days conducting scientific experiments. [http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/Engnews/20070405/660000000020070405200023E8.html] .

On 5 September 2007, Ko San was named as the prime candidate, whilst Yi So-yeon will serve as his backup. [http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/techscience/2007/09/05/68/0601000000AEN20070905003600320F.HTML] However on March 10, 2008 it was announced that the prime candidate has changed to Yi So-yeon due to several violations of training protocol by Ko San. Ko San will serve as backup. [http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/techscience/2008/03/10/7/0601000000AEN20080310003900320F.HTML]

It will cost South Korea approximately 26 billion won (28 million USD) to pay for the training and spaceflight.

April 8 2008 Yi So-yeon took off from the Baikonur [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7335874.stm] space centre in Kazakhstan at 11:16 GMT.

Other finalists

The eight other finalists were:
*Park Ji-young (23, female, master's course student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/park_ji-young.htm]
*Yun Seok-oh (29, male, unmarried, official at Hanyang University) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/yoon_seok-oh.htm]
*Lee Jin-young (36, male, married, squadron leader at Republic of Korea Air Force) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/lee_jin-young.htm]
*Jang Joon-sung (25, male, unmarried, lieutenant at Bucheon Nambu Police Station) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/jang_jun-seong.htm]
*Ryu Jeong-won (33, male, married, chief technology officer at IT Magic Co.) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/ryu_jeong-won.htm]
*Lee Han-gyu (33, male, unmarried, researcher at Samsung SDI) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/lee_han-gyu.htm]
*Choi Ah-jeong (24, female, unmarried, master's course student at Seoul National University) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/choi_ah-jeong.htm]
*Kim Young-min (33, male, married, researcher at Korea Basic Science Institute) [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/candidates/english/kim_young-min.htm]

Korea Space Center

South Korea will finish the Korea Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla province by 2008. [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/04/asia/AS-GEN-SKorea-Astronaut.php ITH, South Korea to announce its first astronaut] ] [ [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/5108147.html Houston Chronicle, "South Korea taps robotics expert as 1st astronaut"] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.woojuro.or.kr/ The Korean astronaut program]
* [http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200609/kt2006090317362253460.htm Astronaut Program Needs Boosting]