OK, I will continue carry the banner of the Yi So-yeon around here (and don’t you naysayers try to shake it loose). Cheers to her as she came back to Korea yesterday and will soon start her new gig(Chosun).
Having earned a doctorate from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in February, Yi will now work as a researcher for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and lecture on space science.
In case you might not have heard, Miss Yi’s trip was not a one-shot deal but part of a larger program to develop an indigenous space program, including manned space flight technology. I have little doubt that Miss Yi’s training and experience with the Russian program and on the International Space Station (along with an assist from Ko San) will help that process along.
Whether the $25 million spent on the launch was a more economical use of research funds than the $2.3 billion that China has spent so far to put one man into space is another question. Obviously, the Chinese are well ahead if the goal is to put several people a year into space. I suspect that Korea might be better off shooting for the satellite launch business rather than trying to send humans up on the cheap with their own rockets.
In any case, welcome back to Korea Miss (I guess I should say Dr.) Yi.
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Apparently Korea doesn’t agree, though, since (as you note)
while stunts like this undoubtedly have a significant economic developmental component, they also seem to serve other equally, and perhaps more, important symbolic purposes. So did the US space program. But what seems distinctive about many Korean projects, from hub of hubs to the toilet revolution, etc., etc., is their relation to the uncertain legitimacy of the Korean state. Before I have to slip into my nomex suit and fireman’s overalls, I hasten to add that I am not calling that legitimacy into question. Instead I mean to note the internal problem of the legitimacy of the contending Korean states, north and south, and the contested nature of the ROK’s legitimacy within the ROK itself. A major impetus for the mighty striving for world-class status in everything from semi-conductors to underwear seems to be the need of the ROK state to demonstrate its legitimacy through its prowess in bringing up the level of ROK society to int’l standard, thus trumping (the myth) of Nork resistance to the Japanese, expiating the sin of proven widespread South Korean collaboration with the Japanese, and assuaging the wounds of all those sacrificed politically and economically on the altar of development.
Will it work?
The $25 million spent on the launch was a more economical use of research funds than the $2.3 that China has spent so far to put one man into space
I always suspected one’s dollar goes a lot further in China, but *wow*! Someone give them a twenty so they can get to Mars.
Rambutan,
Thanks for pointing that mistake out. It has been fixed.
Wow, Sperwer, that’s deep. Probably won’t use it at a cocktail party, but I’m sure you have. How’d it go over?
I have a feeling thaat was written after the cocktail party
then why don’t you?
I did.
I don’t go to cocktail parties in Korea Linkd; too many knuckleheads like swlee
Well she won’t be doing anything anytime soon. She’s currently in an Air Force hospital, because of supposed neck and back injuries as a result of the hard landing.
Was the re-entry of the capsule complicated by soyeon’s fatness? Maybe if she wasn’t so fat the re-entry trajectory would have been as planned. She was probably sitting in the seat reserved for tourists that caused the capsule to fall ass-first.
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