The first South Korean astronaut, Yi So-yeon, is set to launch in April on a Russian rocket headed for the International Space Station.
There are several stories here. One is that she is the first Korean astronaut, which is cool. The second is that she replaces Ko San, who was slated to be the first, but broke some rules the Russians have set. They appear to be minor infractions involving training manuals — the first was he sent a manual home by accident, he says, and a second violation involved getting a manual he was not supposed to receive — but the Russian space agency takes those rules seriously, and after formally apologizing twice, I don’t blame Korea for replacing him.
The third story is that Dr. Yi is young — 29 — and has a PhD in bioengineering. Wow. I had just gotten my degree when I turned 29, but I wasn’t also training to be an astronaut!
The fourth aspect of this is that Dr. Yi a woman. I wish this weren’t news, but a casual perusal of the list of space-travelers makes it clear it is. The good news is, in my opinion, soon this won’t be news. Women will travel in space as much as men, and eventually we’ll be an egalitarian space-faring species.
I look forward to that time very much, and so I wish Dr. Yi a good launch and journey, and hope that one day her travels won’t be news any more.
In unrelated news, it turns out I cannot spell the word "astronaut" correctly the first I try, ever.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
That’s cool!
Anyone knows if there are any latinamerican astronauts?
March 10th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Well, there will always be “firsts”. The only question is whether or not it’s really newsworthy. Somehow “world’s first left-handed redhead astronaut” just doesn’t seem like it would ever be news.
Now, “first blonde passes astronaut tests” would definitely be news.
(GDARFC)
March 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
The one story not being told about South Korean astronaut, Yi So-yeon, should be said for the record. She is incredibly smart and also very lucky, which is how anyone gets to be an astronaut these days. The untold story though, is she is really hot.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Anyone knows if there are any latinamerican astronauts?”
Franklin Chang-Diaz immigrated to the US from Costa Rica.
Rodolfo Neri Vela was Mexican.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Bully for her!
The important bit out the way then lets me ask this question:
Any reason you don’t care about the (largely) successful lauch of Jules Vernes?
March 10th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez was a Cuban cosmonaut.
Marcos C. Pontes was a Brazilian astronaut.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Girl power! *sigh* Too bad I never followed the science path that I had potential in.
That’s one thing I’ve noticed about South Korea; in the scientific community, they don’t seem to have a gender gap as big as we do in the States. I think it’s (happily) not big news that their first astronaut is a woman.
Also, it was strange, but when I first saw the picture, I thought she looked like Boomer/Eight/Athena. Actually, she does except for Dr. Yi’s jaw is a bit more square.
PS: Sally Ride is still a hero in my books.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Sili, don’t confuse a lack of a post about a topic to my not caring. Sometimes I get to something late, and then everyone else int he world has written about it, so I don’t bother. Other times, I’m just too busy. Sometimes, honestly, I just don’t feel like it. I can’t keep up with everything, and I long ago stopped trying. I’d be working on the blog 24 hours a day if I did.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I agree with Brad, she is HAWT!!!!
Any word on a “Hot Women In Space” calendar?
March 10th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I love Korean women, I’d better otherwise my wife will divorce me
March 10th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Wonder, amongst her traits, if she’s single. She’s only one year older than I.
Amazing too, is that she’s managed to achieve what many can only dream of at that young age.
Goes to show you don’t have to be over the hill to achieve greatness. Um, no offense, Phil.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
To Ken B: As I recall, Mission Specialist Rhea Seddon used to refer to herself as “The First Blonde In Space”.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Sorry – I guess caring wasn’t really the right word. Perhaps EU ‘pride’ got the better of me.
I was wondering though, if it was just a matter of it being just boring old maintenance. No people, no science – and all for a white elephant.
Glad to see it’s ‘just’ a time issue. I’m honestly stunned at how much you and PZed can cover – I came back from being ten days offline Thursday night, and I’m still not caught up (well, I am with you and him now).
Thank you for all that you *do* cover. I’m learning something new every day.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Safe travels, Dr. Yi!
March 10th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
01101001,
Try this
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio.html
March 10th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
If she’s training and going up with the Russians, doesn’t that technically make her a cosmonaut?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
29 huh? Who was the youngest person to ever fly in space?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Age_milestones
March 10th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
We are *so* close to anime babes in space. So, so, close…
All we need now is mecha suits with missiles, guns and giant swords for them to pilot.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Excellent!
I wonder who the first woman to land on the Moon will be .. & when that’ll happen?
Way thing’s are going, she’ll prob’ly be Chinese!
… 
Anyone know Sally Ride’s hair colour?
There’s actually an argument that women will make better astronauts, physically smaller, tend to be better at interpersonal skills, there’ll be a likely need for good gardening skills and nurturing of the environment which women currently tend to be better at, etc ..
——————-
Incidentally, the space-shuttle ‘Endeavour’ has just lifted off successfully -a night launch!
March 11th, 2008 at 1:39 am
I joked :
“Anyone know Sally Ride’s hair colour?”
which was silly of me… It really _doesn’t_ matter I know!
But provoked by comments here about first “red haired, etc ..”
I do wonder :
First blonde in space?
First Brunette?
First redhead?
& um .. sleeping in zero-gravity …
March 11th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Stevor – that reminds me (but only a little) of Isaac Asimov’s suggestion that the best astronauts (for zero g) would be amputees, because in space legs are just useless dead weight.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:47 am
# Ted H. on 10 Mar 2008 at 7:00 pm
“If she’s training and going up with the Russians, doesn’t that technically make her a cosmonaut?”
I would’ve thought so too …
I forgot to add the word “still” in front of “I do wonder’ in my post above too. ;-(
& BA if the last line’s too risque for this feel free to just delete it & please spare the rest of my post – although Stephen Baxter’s superb novel ‘Titan’ discussed the concept a bit to some good humorous & sensual FXT…
———————–
Sheesh, I keep forgetting how hung-up over issues of .. ah, human biological imperatives .. you Yanks get!
Please learn from Denmark or the Netherlands y’all!
(The Puritan Pilgrim fathers have a lot to answer for!)
March 11th, 2008 at 1:56 am
# csrster on 11 Mar 2008 at 1:40 am
Stevor – that reminds me (but only a little) of Isaac Asimov’s suggestion that the best astronauts (for zero g) would be amputees, because in space legs are just useless dead weight.
Yeah, that’s right too! I recall Asimov had an amputee astronaut leading a mission or spacebase (Moon? Mercury? Saturn?) in one of his SF novels – one of the “LuckyStarr” young adult ones perhaps!
Women, disabled, the elderly, etc .. space is very good for these groups -they should all be joining the push for O’Neil or Lunar colonies!
March 11th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Pepsi is sponsoring astronauts now?!
Man I hate Pepsi. I guess NASA is using it in space for the same reason that they use dog’s milk in that episode of ‘Red Dwarf’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhjGXCk-RVU
March 11th, 2008 at 2:17 am
It really shouldn’t matter how she looks, she is obviously a very talented and smart person.
Those who are proclaiming her as “Hawt!!” might temper their assessment after checking her Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_So-yeon
March 11th, 2008 at 2:25 am
I’m a Korean national living in the US, and my interest in wanting to know about expat experience in Korea led me to a very good blog written by a half-black, half-Korean guy named Michael Hurt (aka Metropolitician). It just happens that he is a personal friend of Yi So-Yeon (they met while attending UC Berkeley), and he conducted a series of interviews with her while she was going through the selection process back in 2006.
http://www.seoulglow.com/?p=12
http://www.seoulglow.com/?p=14
The third and the last part should be posted soon.
One thing that kind of makes me want to slap my forehead is the fact that the Korean government basically turned the whole thing into a reality TV show, starting with 36,000 applicants and going through several elimination rounds. It didn’t help that this took place during the last couple of years of a very unpopular administration. There were even some vocal accusations that the first Korean astronaut was going to be nothing more than a space tourist.
I felt that the deck was stacked against her from the beginning, since gender equality in Korea has a long way to go. I always thought that the authorities deliberately chose a man and a woman for the two finalists as a token gesture, and it was going to be a man no matter what happened. It looks like it kind of backfired on them. I hope nothing but the best for Yi So-Seon.
March 11th, 2008 at 3:11 am
“Incidentally, the space-shuttle ‘Endeavour’ has just lifted off successfully -a night launch!”
That’s the first launch I’ve missed since the RTF launch. But I wasn’t gonna get up at 6am! ;o)
March 11th, 2008 at 3:52 am
[...] meldet es die Augsburger Allgemeine. Das Bad Astronomy Blog ergänzt: Dr. Yi a woman. I wish this weren’t news, but a casual perusal of the list of [...]
March 11th, 2008 at 6:31 am
As a South Korean, I have to say that I’m not so pleased to have our “first astronaut.”
I have nothing against her, but as far as I understand, the whole thing basically boils down to this: Korean government spends $20M to buy a ticket for Russia’s space tourist program, and holds (more or less) a national lottery for the ticket. There is NOTHING made of Korean technology in sending her to space, except for some ridiculous “space-proof kimchi pack” I’ve heard about. To make this whole thing sound scientific, they’ve set up a list of ten experiments for Ms. Yi to conduct in space, and you know what? One of them is: “how much does your face swell when you are in space?”
…So that is Korea’s Big $2M-worth Space Science Question.
Argh.
She isn’t even the first Korean to enter space… actually some guy won another earlier lottery ticket to space, this time sponsored by Oracle Corporation (if I remember correctly). So she’s just that: the first government-sponsored Korean space tourist (and, I hope, the last).
Of course, whatever bad things we can say against lotteries is not the fault of lottery winners, so I wish her good luck, but truly, it strikes me as ridiculous and pointless to spend $20M for a reality show, in a country where the majority of astrophysics PhDs have trouble finding a decent job. (And that includes some of my close friends…)
- Yongjik Kim
March 11th, 2008 at 8:20 am
@StevoR, Csrster
Are you sure you’re not thinking of Arthur C Clarke’s Islands in the Sky?
March 11th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Yes, she’s HAWT, “Hotties in Space!”
But, primarily, she’s a Phd., and the best her country has to offer for this kind of pursuit. She’s going to make one hell of a role model for girls growing up in her country. (and around the world, for that matter.)
But, date her? Hummm… something tells me I’d be pretty well out of my leauge.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
# Al on 11 Mar 2008 at 8:20 am :
—————–
@StevoR, Csrster
“Are you sure you’re not thinking of Arthur C Clarke’s Islands in the Sky?”
———————-
Pretty sure … Although that may have been another example. I think, from memory it was one of the “Lucky Starr” series but, hey, I guess I could be wrong.
Or more likely, that sort of case was described and used by both Asimov and Clarke and maybe others too.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:51 am
OK, maybe my mind is in the gutter, but this topic got me curious… Have any mammals every reproduced in space? Maybe even born there? I just wondered if there are serious risks preventing an embryo from developing normally in a weightless environment – or under gravity much different than earth.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I think she is very pretty in that image. Feel bad for her if readers’ comments regarding a lottery are true. The term “tourist” seems a bit derogatory, and having read some of the “experiments” they do up there in the first place it doesn’t seem quite as bad that hers might be equally lame.
March 15th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Firstly, I should declare an interest here, as Soyeon Yi is a good friend and we have conversed regularly during her time at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.
I’m sure she’d both cringe and laugh over the ‘hawt’ debate. What really matters is that she’s an incredibly smart and multi-talented girl, with a sparkling personality who came through a really tough and competitive selection process and has since completed an equally challenging training regime, conducted entirely in Russian, which she’s had to learn, as she’s gone along, in a country far from home, both geographically and culturally.
She also took on the additional challenge of completing her Ph.D remotely, while doing her cosmonaut training, and over coming all the difficulties of being far from her professors and colleagues, completed her thesis on schedule, and having her doctorate conferred as recently as 29th February.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the Korean government spending millions on buying a seat to ISS and the value of the experiments to be conducted, they’ve chosen got a great candidate to make the flight and someone who will be a PR dream for science, engineering and as a role model for Korean women and girls.
She effectively finished her last training yesterday, and now is on a day by day sequence of final exams, tests and medical reviews, leading to departure to Baikonur on 26th March and launch on 8th April.
So, I wish the feisty, talented and courageous Dr Yi well for the difficult three weeks, which lie ahead, a smooth and uneventful launch, a successful visit to ISS, and pray for her safe return. I know she has the ‘right stuff’ and will do a great job for her country and herself.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
It might be news that she’ll be the first Korean in space. It might even be news that the first Korean (or person from any nationality) in space will be a woman.
It’s not news that she’d be a woman in space. In being a woman in space, she’ll join a club that already has dozens of members. To be sure, women represent a minority of space-travellers, especially viewed historically, but they are not UNUSUAL (and thus newsworthy) space travellers, especially viewed in light of current practices. (and thus not unjustly inflating the number of men by including men who made suborbital flights in the 60s, for example, when the US used only male astronauts)
As a global society, we are far more egalitarian than we are spacefaring, and it’d probably be a bit more becoming if we could stop acting surprised every time we see a female headed to space. To reiterate, it’s actually NOT news these days. Thank goodness.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
[...] fact: Past hottie of the week Dr. Yi So-yeon is going into space. She kinda got in on a technicality, because that dude she was up against broke some Russian space [...]