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Entire South Korean Space Programme Shuts Down As Sole Astronaut Quits

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-this-job-and-launch-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes The entire South Korean space program has been forced to shut down after its only astronaut resigned for personal reasons. Yi So-yeon, 36, became the first Korean in space in 2008 after the engineer was chosen by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to lead the country's $25m space project. Her resignation begs questions of KARI regarding whether she was the right person to lead the program and whether the huge cost of sending her into space was a waste of taxpayer's money.

6 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Not her fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe they should have, I don't know, trained a few other people as well?

  2. Management 101 by Kittenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Always have a back-up.

    --
    "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Management 101 by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There were tens of thousands of applicants for the position of sole astronaut. I think they should check back with the runner ups and see if they need a job.

      And it's not like she was an active astronaut going to space all the time. She went once, then the rest of the time was mostly PR appearances.

      To shut down even one department over this seems to indicate that someone was looking to shut it down anyway and was waiting for an excuse.

  3. Re:begs FFS by GonzoPhysicist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not evolution it's erosion, we are losing the original meaning and gaining nothing.

    --
    horror vacui
  4. Re:begs FFS by stoploss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give up. Language evolves.

    Sure. But that doesn't mean it should, at least not in every case. In this case, it shouldn't. Fighting back is appropriate.

    I beg to differ, and I will fight your efforts.

    "Beg the question" was a poor choice for the English name for the logical fallacy initially, and the entire issue can be sidestepped by using a self-explanatory term like "presumes the argument".

    The modern usage form, meaning "prompts the question", is perfectly cromulent and befits the parsing of the phrase.

    Give up the dark side.

  5. Re:begs FFS by njnnja · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being against this particular transaction is not the same as being against the evolution of language. As far as I can tell, the new meaning of the phrase "begs the question" is the same as "raises the question," except with the additional nuance that the speaker/writer wants to sound like a person who is well read enough to have encountered the phrase in its original usage but, in fact, is not and has not. Being against that does not make one a grammar nazi or language Luddite.