Yi Soyeon was born on June 2, 1978, in Gwangju, South Korea. Soyeon earned both a master and bachelor degree in mechanical engineering, from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Tech.), in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In 2006, she was in the process of working for a doctorate in biological science at KAIST, when she was selected as 1 of 36000 applicants, to train in Russia, for a flight to the International Space Station (ISS); Soyeon would go on become the first South Korean to travel to outer space. South Korea paid Russia, $20 million to allow a South Korean to accompany the Russian spaceflight. Soyeon was trained as backup for computer engineer, Go San. The RFSA (Russian Federal Space Agency), ended up barring Go from the mission for violating training protocol, after he removed reading materials from a training center and mailed classified documents to South Korea.
On April 8, 2008, Soyeon took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, as a payload engineer, accompanied by two Russian cosmonauts. The craft docked with the ISS and Soyeon spent 9 days carrying out experiments and medical tests. She returned to Earth on April 19, along with space station crew members, American commander, Peggy Whitson & Russian flight engineer, Yuri Malenchenko, aboard the Soyuz TMA-11. Although the mission was a success, the Soyuz had a rough re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, causing it to fall steeply to Earth and land roughly in the Kazakh steppes. Soyeon sustained back injuries, that later required hospitalization. She resigned from South Korea's space program in 2014.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yi-Soyeon
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Women in Science, Medicine and Mathematics
Non-FictionWomen who have contributed to the fields of science, medicine and math. They paved the way for future generations, made groundbreaking discoveries, many times while being outshone or downtrodden by their male counterparts.
