Angkasawan.

Fine. I'll admit it. I do have a grudging respect for the Malaysian astronaut. Is having a Malaysian in space something to be proud of? I suppose. Is this event being milked for every ounce of political leverage that could possibly come out of it? Yes it is. Why am I surprised? I honestly don't know.

Najib said that we can now stand a few inches taller. Badawi was equally nauseating. I was trying to put a finger on why I was feeling so aggrieved over the whole thing and trying to identify if all my cynicism for our administrators was causing this. What I came up with is this.

National pride can be attributed to many things. Lets look at the biggest one. That this is a big step forward for Malaysia. Is it? No. The reason Yuri Gagarin was a success was because of the effort that it took to get him there? The same goes for Niel Armstrong. Did Malaysia have anything to do with our Malaysian going to space? Apart from buying the Sukois from the Russians and getting a free ride, no. We could go into all the support that we gave our astronaut, but I'm not going to count anything that we can't quite prove had an actual impact. The trip is a milestone for our young doctor who had to go through the whole training program. He pulled through, and thats an achievement for him, not us.

Which led me to thinking about a similar idea when we are talking national pride. Sports. Athletes overcoming great obstacles brings great pride to a country, and its still largely an individual effort. Yet the whole country gets to take pride. Why should an astronaut be any different? Why can't we be proud that a Malaysian managed to be declared fit to board and serve on a rocket, and share in the pride? Well, because there are a lot of people that can do it. Our astronaut pulled through, and I'm happy for him. But it doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of other Malaysians who would have done a great job as well. Finding a Malaysian who can be an astronaut isn't quite as hard as finding one who can run faster than everyone else in the world. Very different situations.

It was then that it hit me. I now know why I felt half lame about having a countryman in space. Its because all our declarations of glory are likely to fade away into nothingness because we don't have the will or the interest to build on it. It just feels like we have bitten off more than we can chew. To say that we are now on par with the other nations is so much of a stretch that I won't be surprised if we have plastic deformation. (sorry, material science joke). We don't have a space program. We are no where near the point where we can build anything that can escape orbit. It makes absolutely no economic sense for us to pursue a space program, and unless we do that, sending our astronauts to space will have a distinctly hollow feel to it. Any country can do that.

Could the Thais have bought a bunch of fighter jets and picked one of its military officers to go on a free ride to space. Sure, they could. Could the Argentineans have done it? Yeap.

Sure, having a man in space is special. But the fact that you are part of an elite club because everyone else just can't really be bothered to join is just a bit deflating.

Still, Malaysia Boleh right?