Alper Gezeravcı responds for the first time to 'he went as a tourist' criticisms

Alper Gezeravcı traveled to the International Space Station on January 20 and returned to Earth on February 9 after spending 18 days in space.

The first Turkish astronaut, Alper Gezeravcı, responded to the 'he went as a tourist' criticism on Cüneyt Özdemir's YouTube program.

Cüneyt Özdemir asked the following question:

"You are saying many things with good intentions. A group of accounts—some FETÖ, some opposition, some mindless—are taking all of this and using it to neutralize or diminish this story.

One of these is '55 million dollars were paid and you went there as a tourist.'

The space sector is being privatized all over the world.

As a matter of fact, it is being taken out of the hands of states. What did you think when you heard these? Did you go as a tourist?"

"OUR PEOPLE WHO VOICE THIS..."

Astronaut Alper Gezeravcı responded to those claims by saying, "Let me give a small answer regarding the origin of the question. When our people who voice this board a plane from Turkey to America or from America to Turkey to go from one place to another for work and pay money, do they become tourists?"

Özdemir said, in response to Gezeravcı's answer, 'A perfect answer, you really gave a magnificent answer.'

Gezeravcı finished his words as follows;

"Or, when a primary school child tries something very simple in a different experiment unit at their school, similar to an experiment made for a primary school child that you showed earlier—an experiment done to create an idea about the zero-gravity environment that means nothing in the mind of a primary school-aged child—are they wasting their father's money? When a primary school-aged child does an experiment in their school laboratory. 

In other words, the perception threshold needs to be corrected a little bit. I insistently emphasize that this project is not for our adult people, but for the future of the children who will constitute the future of this country—the Turkish scientists you now proudly see in America—who will make their mark on the future of space history in the world with their own country's resources and their own country's self-confidence. While people try to undermine this project, they are actually undermining the future of their own children."

News Source : 12punto