Malaysia's first astronaut relishes "giant leap"

By Shavkat Rakhmatullayev

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Malaysia's first astronaut said hours before launching into space on board a Russian rocket that the trip was "a small step for me but definitely a giant leap" for Malaysia.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, will take off for the $100-billion International Space Station (ISS) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday afternoon.

Paraphrasing U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong's words when he became the firm man on the moon in 1969, Shukor said the journey would be a leap forward for all his countrymen.

"I will come back and share all my experience with all the Malaysian people," he told reporters from behind a hermetically-sealed glass partition that is part of the cosmonauts' pre-flight quarantine.

Shukor, flying together with the new ISS crew commander, U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, will also become the first Muslim to fly into space during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Despite his nod to Armstrong, Shukor said he took the greatest inspiration from Yuri Gagarin, the Russian who became the first man in space in 1961.

"I'm hoping to be actually like Yuri Gagarin to inspire the nation," Shukor said, sitting next to the other Expedition-16 members due to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Gagarin's flight on April 12, 1961, stunned Cold War foe the United States and was hailed as a triumph by the Soviet Union, sparking a national obsession with space travel that continues nearly half a century later.

Shukor, selected from 11,000 Malaysian candidates in a deal his government arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of Russian jets, will return after 11 days in space. Whitson and Malenchenko will work for half a year in orbit.

Shukor was unsure if he would be able to hug his family before blasting off into space. "My mum has always been worried about me (going into space)," he said. "Any mother would be worried about her son.

Stressing the importance of Shukor's flight for the Southeast Asian nation, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is expected to come to Baikonur and watch the launch, Russian space officials said.

GUNS AND WHIPS

Whitson, for whom it will be the second time in space, said she anticipated the moment her crew would arrive at the ISS to replace the current Expedition-15 crew. "I am really looking forward to their 'Welcome on board," she said.

Whitson and Malenchenko are due to dock with the ISS on October 12 to replace Russian Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Russian Oleg Kotov and U.S. astronaut Clay Anderson.

Malenchenko, for whom it will be the fourth space odyssey, raised eyebrows in 2003 when he married an American woman in Texas via a satellite TV link-up from the ISS.