VATSIKOPOULOS: More than fifty years after the first Sputnik arrived, space is a very busy place. You never know who you’ll find.

MAN IN SPACE PRAYING: ‘Allah… akbah… Allah…’.

VATSIKOPOULOS: Who’s that? Is it a Russian cosmonaut? A Chinese yuhangyuan? An American astronaut? No, it’s Malaysia’s first angkasawan. He’s Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, proudly flying the Malaysian stripes of glory.

DR SHEIKH: [DVD Message to Malaysian people] ‘God willing there will be more Malaysian astronauts in future’.

VATSIKOPOULOS: The deal that launched Malaysian a developing nation into the heavens was done back here on earth. When Malaysia spent billions of dollars on eighteen Russian Sukhoi jet fighters, Moscow gave Malaysia a free ride into space – a slice of glory.

NAJIB RAZAK: [Deputy Prime Minister, Malaysia] Even the very fact that I was part and parcel of the whole plan to send somebody to space, the first Malaysian to space… and see it happening, was such a moving experience.

VATSIKOPOULOS: But who to send? After a three year rigorous nationwide quest, Dr Sheik Muszaphar Shukor emerged with the right stuff. Alpha Male with movie-star good looks, he beat 11,424 wannabes.

DR SHEIKH: ‘I only sleep about two to four hours every day for the past five years because I do feel that sleeping is a waste of time. It’s the only time I feel that I can manage my time.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: No wonder. He’s an orthopaedic surgeon, a restaurateur, a part time model, and in his spare time he’s done volunteer work in Afghanistan and Cambodia. Now add to that – angkasawan.

DR SHEIKH: ‘It’s a very high-risk profession. We have been trained to become fearless, not to be afraid of anything. I remember I used to be afraid of heights.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: ‘Fear of heights! You can’t get higher than space!’

DR SHEIKH: ‘But I did overcome my fear of heights.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: And then he mastered Russian, the fundamentals of space and took a giant leap for Malaysia. In Dr Sheikh’s case, it’s finding a cure for cancer, experimenting with live cancer cells in the cosmos. Back on earth, Dr Sheikh is a role model for aspiring space travellers.

YOUNG STUDENT AT SPACE MUSEUM: ‘Congratulations for making the Malaysian people proud.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: Not just Malaysians, but Muslims the world over.

‘Dr Sheik Muszaphar is not the first Muslim to travel to space, but he is the first devout Muslim to be in space during Ramadan and that presented an interesting set of challenges. In space you may be closer to God, but which way is Mecca?’

DR SHEIKH: ‘It took more than a hundred religious scholars two days to agree on the rules of Islam in space – they even published a book. And it’s very interesting because no one knows how to pray in space because no one has done it before. Every forty five minutes the sun goes up, every forty five minutes the sun goes down and by right you have to pray eighty times a day which confuses many people… many Islamic scholars on earth.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: In space, Dr Sheikh became the poster boy of progressive Islam.

NAJIB RAZAK: ‘It’s not a handicap the fact that he’s also quite good looking as a person. So he has the charisma - and being the first Malaysian into space has been a great success story…. a role model, especially for the young people.

VATSIKOPOULOS: From the spaceship Soyuz to Malaysia’s national car the Proton and Dr Sheikh’s earthly mission is to be the pin up boy for science. And if anyone can sell science, it’s Dr Sheikh. And to keep his mind on the job, a government contract which forbids him from marrying for two years. To an audience of a thousand veils, Dr Sheikh harks back to a time in history when Islamic science and astronomy led the way.

DR SHEIKH: ‘Nowadays we are more way back, having been conquered by the Western….. by other countries, so I do hope that a Muslim, could lead these Muslim scientists, scholars, intellectuals to bring back the glory of Islam to the world.’

DR SHEIKH: [Addressing students]: ‘You have to master your English in order to compete with the rest of the world. If you want to succeed in life, if you want to challenge the American’s, the westerners, you must be fluent in English.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: Malaysia’s space programme, started by Dr Mahathir has been grounded for lack of funds, but Dr Sheikh is looking for lift off.

DR SHEIKH: Whoever conquers space will conquer the world, like the Russians, the Americans and now the Chinese, the Indians – they are all competing amongst each other for the benefits of the space program will help the entire nation.

VATSIKOPOULOS: He’s a veteran of thirty television commercials, catwalk shows and magazine covers. Now he must also be a careers counsellor. On state television, orphans are about to meet their favourite celebrity and then be put on the right path.

TV HOST #1: ‘Dr Sheikh’s ambition is to be an astronaut, and hers is to be a model.

TV HOST #2: ‘Can you give some tips, because you are also involved in modelling.’

DR SHEIKH: ‘My advice to you is, although you want to be a model, that should just be a hobby. Focus on science and maths subjects, so that if possible you can be a doctor, a scientist, an aerospace engineer - so that you can contribute to the field of aerospace.’

VATSIKOPOULOS: His feet may now be firmly on the ground, but Dr Sheikh is still reaching for the stars. His next challenge is to get his pilot’s licence and work in Africa. Oh… and maybe one more thing….

DR SHEIK: Well I’m very interested in politics. At a very young age I’ve met many politicians out there who made changes to the world - to the community - and I think being a politician is an outlet to make your voice heard. If politics is the way to make changes, why not?