Training for Faiz continues

BY SIM LEOI LEOI

PUTRAJAYA: Training for Angkasawan Mejar Dr Faiz Khaleed will go on despite the country’s space programme coming to a virtual halt.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the Government was analysing the “cost benefit” of the first space mission and whether it should go on.

“If financial problems are an obstacle, we may have to think of other options. The space mission may be postponed but we want to continue with the training for the astronaut,” he told reporters after meeting 11 Indonesian parliamentarians at his office here yesterday.

Najib was commenting on reports that the country’s space programme looked to be “as good as grounded” after Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili revealed there was no money left for it.

In the first phase of the programme, Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Sheikh Shukor and two other astronauts blasted into space in a Russian-built Soyuz 11 rocket from Baikonour in Kazakhstan on Oct 10 last year.

It was partly funded by the deal related to the purchase of Sukhoi SU30MKM fighter jets from the Russian Government.

On the statement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that the fuel subsidy would be restructured into a fairer system to benefit medium and lower income groups, Najib said the move was necessary to take into account the “leakages”.