Question Raised Over Change to Backup Candidate

The nation's first would-be astronaut has been replaced by a backup candidate at the request of the Russian authorities due to his security violations. Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old female mechanical engineer, will start her journey to space on April 8. The switch came after the Russian side dismissed South Korea's original choice, Ko San, for repeatedly breaking training protocol.

It is somewhat disappointing to see Ko replaced due to rule violations just four weeks before the scheduled space flight. Announcing the switch, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Monday that Ko, 31, made two consecutive security violations. It added that he mistakenly sent a missions training manual to South Korea along with his personal belongings last September, but that it was sent back immediately. Ko, a mission specialist, acquired a spacecraft pilot's instructions last month that he was not authorized to read.

Regrettably, it marked the first time for an astronaut to be replaced due to violations of security regulations. Thus, the public has raised questions about the real reasons for the replacement. Some critics claimed South Korean authorities might have asked Ko to collect information on the operation and astronaut training programs. They argued the authorities sought such information to deflect criticism that the nation's first astronaut program is only a media stunt and big-budget event that has nothing to do with space research.

No one would like to regard such claims as true because the incident might derail ongoing space cooperation between South Korea and Russia. But doubts still remain over the real intentions of the Russian's action. The ministry should provide more convincing explanations. However, a government official said the Russians regard abiding by the rules as critical since even a small and innocent mistake could lead to serious consequences in space.

We hope that Ko's rule violations will not damage the country's reputation and its ambition to become one of the world's powerhouses in research and development of aerospace technology. It is time for the nation to make utmost efforts to help Yi produce successful results in her space mission. She is scheduled to blast off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Space Center on a Soyuz spacecraft on April 8 and stay on the International Space Station for about a week. She will be the second Asian woman to go into space after Chiaki Mukai of Japan who made two trips into orbit in the 1990s.

South Koreans have paid keen attention to the astronaut project. Yi and Ko were selected as finalists among 36,206 contenders in late 2006. Despite his replacement, Ko is to be trained side-by-side with Yi as a backup candidate. We hope the two will do their best to realize the nation's dream of space travel.