{"id":2399,"date":"2014-10-24T02:43:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T02:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?page_id=2399"},"modified":"2015-04-14T02:44:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T02:44:46","slug":"two-astronauts-share-their-unforgettable-experiences","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/tahun-2014\/october-2014\/two-astronauts-share-their-unforgettable-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Astronauts Share Their Unforgettable Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main \"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">0<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukm.my%2Fnews%2Farchive%2Ftahun-2014%2Foctober-2014%2Ftwo-astronauts-share-their-unforgettable-experiences%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?p=2399&amp;via=https:\/\/twitter.com\/ukmtwit\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-toggle-container\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"newsitem_tools\">\n<div class=\"newsitem_info\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"createdate\">FRIDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2014 12:17<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"newsitem_text\">\n<div class=\"news_item_article\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Campus2014\/chiaki1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin<br \/>\nPix Ikhwan Hashim<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BANGI, 21 October 2014 \u2013 Gender is no barrier to being a successful astronaut and being female does not make any difference to becoming one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The first Japanese woman astronaut\u00a0Dr Chiaki Mukai, who is also the Director of the Japanese Space Exploration Agency\u2019s (JAXA) Centre for Applied Space Medicine and Human Research (J-CASMHR) said she do not feel that gender makes a difference.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dr Mukai, who broke gender boundaries when she logged in the most hours in space by spending over 566 hours there, was sharing her experiences with Malaysian scientists at the \u2018UKM in Space\u2019 programme here today.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The programme was organised by The National University of Malaysia (UKM) to commemorate the seventh anniversary of Malaysia\u2019s journey into space.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Apart from Dr Mukai, the programme also featured Datuk Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha, Malaysia\u2019s only astronaut. Sheikh Muszaphar, a medical doctor, is the Principal Fellow at UKM\u2019s Institute of Space Sciences (ANGKASA).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dr Mukai who received the \u2018Prime Minister\u2019s Special Citation for Contributions to Gender Equality\u2019 among many others conferred on her, asked women everywhere not to let their gender stop them from achieving their dreams saying \u201cif you can dream it, you can do it\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While most of the astronauts dreamt of being one since childhood, Dr Mukai, a cardiovascular surgeon, did not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She said growing up in a small village didn\u2019t give her much opportunity to be exposed or even dream of something she described as \u201cout of this world\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dr Mukai was 32 when she read a news report about Japan\u2019s recruitment plan for the first group of the nation\u2019s astronaut. Although she was already highly accomplished having released at least 60 publications, she was in the mindset that those seeking to be one needed to\u00a0be \u201ca strong man and a pilot from the military\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nonetheless she decided to apply as her desire to be part of the historic event grew day by day and after years of waiting and training, she got to fly into space, not once but twice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cBeing in space was the most wonderful thing I have experienced and despite assumptions that women are not strong enough to endure the vigorous physical and mental training, at least 54 women have done so,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI came to know of the space exploration programme when I was 17 and the media was buzzing with news of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing their spacecrafts on the moon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI was amazed by the events but did not think too much of them as those amazing happenings were only taking place in the big countries. Japan at that time did not even have a space programme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dr Sheikh Muszaphar said while at the International Space Station, he carried out experiments on bacteria and those related to liver cancer, leukaemia cells and microbes aimed at advancing science and medical research.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Although seven years have passed since he made the journey into space, the experience of being inside the International Space Station (ISS) still feels like \u201cit was just yesterday\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The orthopaedic surgeon said he dreamt of becoming an astronaut since the age of 10 and although it took 25 years to realise his ambition, he thanked his \u201clucky stars\u201d for the opportunity.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Icon\/ukmnewsportal.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Campus2014\/chiak2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Campus2014\/chiaki3.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FRIDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2014 12:17 By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin Pix Ikhwan Hashim BANGI, 21 October 2014 \u2013 Gender is no<a class=\"tukm-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/tahun-2014\/october-2014\/two-astronauts-share-their-unforgettable-experiences\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2400,"parent":1150,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2399","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2402,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2399\/revisions\/2402"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}