So the Korean astronaut guy commits espionage?

So Korea picked its first space tourist by means of what amounts to a reality show, and the winner gets dropped by the Russians for taking classified material out of Russia. From Yonhap:

"The main reason for the change is based on two consecutive violations of training protocol by Ko," said Lee Sang-mok, the head of the ministry's space technology bureau. Ko mistakenly sent a mission training manual home along with his personal belongings last September, but it was sent back immediately.

I'm with ROK Drop in feeling very uncomfortable about the bullshit excuse given for Ko's two foul-ups. Yonhap again, emphasis mine:

"Ko was aware of the rules and signed an agreement not to break them on entering the program," Lee said. Controllers from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) had also warned him to be careful to abide by the rules, he added. The official speculated that an urge to study every aspect of the space program may have prompted Ko to study material that he was not authorized to read.

Today's Chosun Ilbo hits a little harder:

The ministry says he did it “because of his personal desire to study more.” These “minor mistakes” resulted in his replacement, because Russian authorities judged that similar mistakes might lead to a bigger disaster if they happened in space."

But some experts suspect the government encouraged Ko to gather information. "From the beginning, the authorities have stressed the need to secure information for their independent development of manned space flight, even though the astronaut training course is not unlike a general space tourism program in terms of the amount of money or technological details involved,” a space expert said. “This looks like the result of a formal or informal request for as much information as possible."

This was not the first time South Korea has caused security problems in its joint space development efforts with Russia. At first, Russia agreed with South Korea to jointly develop a liquid-propellant rocket engine, a key component for KSLV-I, a South Korean-made projectile that will be launched from Naro Space Center late this year. But Russia refused to transfer the technology for reasons of security regulations in the technological protection agreement.

Ko will now back-up Gwangju's own Yi So-yeon, who will be the first Korean quote-unquote astronaut and among the first Asian women in space. I'm also with ROK Drop in considering her a space tourist rather than an astronaut, akin to the late Christa McAuliffe and almost akin to former pop star Lance Bass.

I'm curious to see what fall out there will be over this espionage. Sure, Koreans don't care, but the measures to which South Korea has gone to bolster its embryonic (wo)manned space program ought to be shocking for its trade allies and for potential collaborators. We do know for sure, though, that one result of this switch will be that the Metropolitician won't be able to shut up about her.

It would be very sexist of me to write "Well, at least they'll have someone to cook the ramen and prepare the kimchi now," so I won't write that.