When happy Angkasawan Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor go to space in 12 days time, he would be part of Expedition 16 to the International Space Station.
Below is a photo of members of Expedition 16 to the ISS and below it will be the copy of the caption as per the website via the link above:
The Expedition 16 crew members pose for a portrait at the Johnson Space Center. From the left (front row) are Russia’s Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, flight engineer and Soyuz commander; astronaut Peggy Whitson, commander; and Malaysian spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. From the left (back row) are European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Léopold Eyharts, astronaut Garrett Reisman and astronaut Dan Tani, all flight engineers.
Now, the rest are Flight Commander, Flight Enginneers: so WHAT THE FORK IS A SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT? If you remember the late Christa McAuliffe, the teacher on board the doomed space shuttle USS Challenger, she was a Mission Specialist! So is a spaceflight participant another space tourist like Dennis Tito, the first guy to pay his way to go to space?
Okay, you may argue that the difference between Muszaphar and Dennis would be the fact that Dennis paid for his trip while Muszaphar’s is being paid by the government via the Sukhoi-purchase program. Do you know that 11 years before Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, one Japanese reporter by the name of Toyohiro Akiyama (no relations to the Selangor Menteri Besar) went to the space station Mir and all expenses was borne by his employer, Tokyo Broadcasting System?
Akiyama was not recognised as a space tourist because he did not pay for the trip himself but by his employers. So, Muszaphar is a government servant, and technically is still, and his trip is being borne by his employers, the Government of Malaysia, doesn’t that make him another Akiyama?
So now you know what the fork is a SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT.
SeaDemon Says 