South Korea’s First Astronaut Will Be A Woman

Beijing (dbTechno) - South Korea has announced that they have replaced a male astronaut with a woman. 29-year-old bioengineering student Yi So-yeon will replace Ko San on the space voyage, becoming the first South Korean astronaut.

Ko San was reportedly dropped from the launch due to a violation of security protocols.

Lee Sang-mok, Director of Research at South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology made the announcement on Monday.

She was originally chosen as a backup just in case anything went wrong with Ko San. Things have reversed though, as Ko San will now be the backup as Yi heads to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket.

Over 36,000 applications were sent in, along with months of training to try to be chosen as the first South Korean astronaut.

Lee made it clear that Russian officials recommended that Ko San be replaced due to the security violations. He apparently removed training materials from the Russian facility, among other things.

Yi will spend 10 days in space conducting experiments with a team of Russian and U.S. astronauts.

South Korea continues to move forward with their space exploration plans, hoping to finish a $265 million space research center by 2009.