Lai Ka-ying is Hong Kong’s first astronaut. Her mentor saw her talent years ago

If you are working on a space station orbiting hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, the woman set to become Hong Kong’s first astronaut when the mission launches this weekend is exactly the type of person you want by your side, according to the professor who supervised her postgraduate studies.Lai Ka-ying was meticulous, patient and a skilled communicator who could break down highly technical ideas for others, Chow Kam-pui, an honorary associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, told the China-morning-post" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="12558" data-entity-type="organization">South China Morning Post.Lai, who holds a doctorate in computer science and is a police superintendent, is part of the Shenzhou-23 mission team set to blast off on Sunday and dock with China’s Tiangong space station.