Ajushi in Space?
Korea is planning on becoming a player in the space industry.
South Korea officials vowed March 4, 2005 to make space exploration a priority this year by pushing for the creation of an aerospace authority in Seoul and safety guidelines for future forays into orbit.
The announcement by Oh Myung, South Korea’s Minister of Science and Technology, raised the possibility of a three-way Asian space race including China and Japan.
Aerospace industry analysts said a domestic program could fuel a mini-boom in South Korea’s aerospace and electronics industry if the government opts to build a rocket from the ground up instead of buying the technology from nations with existing launch programs.
This announcement may actually only be a warning to the North Koreans.
John Pike, a space industry analyst in Washington, D.C., said he was skeptical about South Korea’s ability to keep pace with Japan and China, and said the announcement may be aimed at North Korea. South Korea’s space talk follows speculation this week that Pyongyang is poised to resume testing its missile program.
I doubt the Koreans would use their space program as a cover to build missiles to attack North Korea with because Korea can already rely on the US military to use their air capabilities to bomb North Korea, if hostilities were ever to break out. I also doubt that this is a legitimate business venture that South Korea hopes to make money with. I don’t thik Korea will do much with their program besides launching a satellite into orbit. Korea can feel some national pride however if they launch a satellite into orbit. This is probably what all this is about, national pride of being able to launch a satellite into space. I for one doubt Korea will ever put their own ajushi in space but I can see them maybe sending someone up to space on a NASA or Russian flight in the future. But who knows maybe one day we will see ajushi flying in the Hyundai1000 rocket into space.
