South Korea's first astronaut

A 30-year-old engineer was chosen to be Korea's first citizen in space.

Ko San, who works at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, will fly with two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station in 2008. He will spend a week there, conducting a series of scientific tests.

The candidates, who were chosen from a list of over 36,000 applicants, have been working with Russian cosmonauts since early this year.
Among those few candidates "Ko proved to be more comfortable communicating with the Russian cosmonauts and he scored higher on performance and scientific experiment tests," Vice Science Minister Chung Yoon said.

Mr Ko is a Seoul National University graduate, specialising in artificial intelligence.
South Korea is working to complete its first space center by the end of the year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6979433.stm