Ko San

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This is a Korean name; the family name is Ko.

Ko San

KAP Astronaut
Nationality	South Korean
Born	October 19, 1976 (1976-10-19) (age 31) Busan, South Korea
Other occupation	Researcher
Selection	2006 South Korean program
Missions	None

Korean name

Hangul	고산
Hanja	高山
Revised Romanization	Go San
McCune-Reischauer	Ko San

Ko San (b. October 19, 1976) is a South Korean researcher at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

Ko was born in Busan. His father died when he was a boy, and his mother raised Ko and his sister. A graduate of Hanyoung Foreign Language High School, Ko went on to study mathematics at Seoul National University. He won a bronze medal at a national amateur boxing tournament in 2004 and climbed a 7,546-meter high mountain in China’s Xinjiang Province, Muztagh Ata, the same year.

On December 25, 2006, he was chosen as one of two finalists in the Korean Astronaut Program, set to fly as a crew on the Russian Soyuz TMA-12 in April 2008.

On September 5, 2007, the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology chose Ko San over Yi So-yeon based on performance in tests during training in Russia.^[1] ^[2] However, on March 10, 2008, this decision was reversed, after the Russian Federal Space Agency asked for a replacement because Ko violated regulations several times at a Russian training center by removing sensitive training documents and mailing one back to Korea.^[3]^[4]^[5]