S'porean in space come 2015? Read the fine print!

Malaysia has done it. So now Singapore wants to do it? Do what, you say?

Send a Singaporean into space, says ST! And target date is no less than Aug 9, 2015...

Here's ST's (Feb 22) page one lead and inside page stories...

The story that TODAY (Feb 22) carried did not have the so-called Singaporean astronaut bit but it did say that an earlier attempt -- a private venture -- to build a spaceport here had fizzled out:

There's also an insing.com story:

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/singapore-agency-develop-promote-satellite/id-8e6d3f00

--------------------------------------------------------------

By the way, did you notice that the agency being set up, the Office for Space Technology and Industry goes by the intials OSTIn, presumably pronounced "Austin".

So, if the Yanks have this well-known space launch lingo, "Houston, we have lift-off!", are we going to have "OSTIn (Austin), we have lift-off?" Some Singapore bureaucrat must have a weird sense of spaced-out humour, or that person loves the US state of Texas!

So, any jokes already? I came across this earlier one (before today's announcement, though)...

What do you call an American who goes into space?
An astronaut.
What about a Russian spaceman?
A cosmonaut.
And one from China?
A taikonaut.
So what do you call a SINGAPOREAN space traveller?
Cannaut, lor!

----------------------------------------------------

The Malaysians are, again, ahead of us, with more "Malaysian astronaut" jokes:

http://flsam.blogspot.sg/2006/12/quickie-joke-sun-exploration.html

Note: The Malaysian astronaut who actually went into space, on Oct 10, 2007, was part of a Russian mission to the International Space Station. The rocket, of course, blasted off from Russia.

-------------------------------------------------------

So, is time travel next? Here's a Brewster Rockit cartoon that takes a dig at this idea...