The number of candidates to become Korea’s first astronaut has dropped to 30.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute announced Friday that after a second screening test it had selected 25 men and five women from two-hundred-45 astronaut hopefuls who passed the first round.

Among them, the youngest is a 23-year-old female graduate student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. A 49-year-old professor is the oldest.

Early next year, the two final candidates will begin training at Russia’s Gagarin Space Center.

Only one will become the first Korean astronaut to board the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in April 2008.