The two finalists for Korea's first astronaut have been selected.

Go San is a 30-year-old researcher of computer vision and human intelligence at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

Lee So-yeon is a 28-year-old female doctorate student at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

The two finalists will go to Russia in March for training, but only one of them will get to board the Soyuz spacecraft to go to the International Space Station orbiting the earth in April 2008.

The Science and Technology Ministry says 36-thousand candidates applied for the two spots, and that the finalists survived several grueling rounds of evaluations on abilities and aptitude.