BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN—When she docks at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, South Korea’s first astronaut will be bringing a spicy Asian menu that would put earlier space fare to shame.

Cinnamon tea, noodles and South Korea’s beloved pickle dish kimchi—all developed by a Korean institute to be bacteria-free—are among the 10 menu items Yi So-yeon will be eating and drinking during her 12-day mission beginning Saturday.

Bringing the ethnic cuisine to the final frontier, the 29-year-old bioengineer even plans to hold a spicy South Korean party for her space station colleagues. Yi and two Russian cosmonauts, all first-timers in space, blasted off from Baikonur in the arid Kazakh steppes on Tuesday.

Astronauts once complained of going hungry after being forced to suck food paste out of small aluminum tubes.

But advances in technology, and the growing number of countries sending their citizens into space, have enriched the space cuisine with new flavors.

Today “we can choose the food that we want,” Sergei Volkov, Yi’s captain, told reporters at a press conference here on the eve of the launch.

“The specialists try and make it as close to real food as possible,” Volkov added.

Chinese tea, Malaysian satay

And with Asia’s economic giants striving to catch up with the more established space programs of Russia and the United States, the new taste in space food is increasingly Asian.

Malaysia’s first astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, celebrated the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 2007 by offering the ISS crew an array of Malaysian specialties, including mangoes and Malaysian-style satay.

“We really liked the Malaysian food. My favorite was dried mango,” US astronaut Peggy Whitson said during a link-up with mission control.

Muszaphar said ahead of the launch that the Malaysian food was milder than usual: “We’ve made sure it’s not very spicy so the Russians can eat it very well.”

When the first Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei, flew into space in 2003, he brought with him Chinese herbal tea, shredded pork with garlic and marinated Kung Pao chicken to make him feel at home.

A blander era

A cabinet at a space museum near the Russian-managed Baikonur launch pad, displays space food from another, blander era.

Aluminum tubes, tin cans and clear plastic bags with powders inside are marked with peeling labels reading “Cabbage soup” and “Russian mustard.”

Tatyana Gavruchenko, space food specialist at the Birulevsky research institute outside Moscow, insisted the contents were actually delicious, and that only the Russians had food tailor-made depending on the astronaut’s tastes.

“I think the Russian food is better but each to his own—it also depends on habits and traditions,” Gavruchenko said.

“The Americans like our soups, our borscht, biscuits and the puree with onions. Everyone’s favorite dish is white cheese with nuts,” she added.

Gavruchenko’s institute produces around 200 food items, including traditional Russian black bread, a Central Asian rice dish called plov and cheese with nuts.

As he watched a Soyuz rocket being lifted into position for Yi’s launch on Tuesday, former Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov admitted to being a little jealous of the new-fangled space food.

“The food now is completely different,” said Vinogradov, who has spent a total of 380 days in space, mostly in the 1990s. “We didn’t complain then but we always wanted a bit more.”

Mother fainted, zipper broke

As the Russian spacecraft rose into the bright blue sunshine, spectators held their breaths, South Koreans celebrated their first astronaut and the astronaut’s mother fainted.

But the flight itself—launched from the same pad that sent Yuri Gagarin and Sputnik into space—seemed flawless. The spacecraft lifted off within seconds of its scheduled departure and delivered its crew into orbit about 10 minutes later.

“Everything goes like Swiss watches” on Soyuz flights, said Christian Feichtinger, who has witnessed a number of launches at the Baikonur Cosmodrome as head of the European Space Agency’s Moscow office.

A zipper broke Tuesday on Volkov’s space suit, but the suit passed a pressure test and the 35-year-old cosmonaut was cleared for flight.

The spacecraft is scheduled to deliver Yi, Volkov, and another cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, 43, to the ISS.

Despite the seeming routine, the sight of the 50-meter-high rocket arcing through the cloudless sky still stirred deep emotions. Relatives, friends and colleagues stood in silence watching the huge vehicle rise as though weightless from the launch pad.

Yi’s mother, Jung Kum-suk, screamed and collapsed as Russian medics in orange jump suits rushed to her aid. Officials said later that she had recovered.

A $20-million ride

The launch triggered celebrations in South Korea, where thousands of people gathered near City Hall in Seoul to watch on giant television screens. Live broadcasts showed Yi inside the capsule smiling and waving and giving the thumbs-up sign.

“The birth of the first South Korean astronaut is a joy to the people and will give a big hope to the growing generations,” President Lee Myung-bak told the crowd.

South Korea paid Russia $20 million for the launch, and staged a 2006 competition that drew 36,000 applicants to become the country’s first astronaut.