BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Malaysia's first astronaut wants to inspire his countrymen just like Yuri Gagarin did more than 45 years ago.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopaedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, will take off for the $100-billion International Space Station (ISS) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday afternoon.

Paraphrasing U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong's words when he became the firm man on the moon in 1969, Shukor said the journey would be a "giant leap" forward for all Malaysians.

And he told reporters from behind a hermetically sealed glass partition, part of the cosmonauts' pre-flight quarantine, that he took the most inspiration from Yuri Gagarin, the Russian who became the first man in space in 1961.
"I'm hoping to be actually like Yuri Gagarin to inspire the nation," Shukor said, sitting next to the other Expedition-16members due to fly on the Russian Soyuz rocket.

Gagarin's flight stunned Cold War foe the United States and was hailed as a triumph by the Soviet Union, sparking an enduring national obsession with space travel.

Underscoring the importance of Shukor's flight for Malaysia, in Southeast Asia, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is expected to go to Baikonur to watch the launch, Russian space officials said.

Shukor will become the first Muslim to fly into space during the holy fasting month of Ramadan after being selected from 11,000 Malaysian candidates in a deal his government arranged with Russia as part of a $1 billion purchase of Russian jets. But he said he was unsure if he would be able to hug his family before blasting off.

"My  mum has always been worried about me (going into space)," he said.

"Any mother would be worried about her son."

PISTOL

He will be flying with the new ISS crew commander, U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. They will work for half a year in orbit while he will return  with the outgoing ISS crew after 11 days  in space.  

Whitson, for whom it will be the second time in space, said she was anticipating the moment her crew  would arrive at the ISS  to replace the Expedition-15 crew.

"I am really looking forward  to their 'Welcome on  board'," she said.  

Whitson and Malenchenko are due to dock with the ISS on Oct.  12 to replace Russian  Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Russian Oleg  Kotov and U.S. astronaut Clay Anderson.

Malenchenko, for whom  it will be the fourth space trip, hit  the headlines in 2003 when he married an American woman in Texas via a  satellite TV link-up from the ISS.  

This time he will become one of the first Russian cosmonauts  in more than 20  years not to take a special "space pistol" to  orbit under his seat in the rocket.

Designed in 1982 and in service  since 1986, the TP-82 pistol  is meant to protect the crew should it find itself in a hostile  environment after  landing.  

"Malenchenko will be taking with him a simple pistol," a  source in the Russian space troops told Reuters,  adding  ammunition for the space pistol was no longer available.

Whitson will be armed with a 'kamcha' - a  traditional  Kazakh horse-whip, which a Russian space official advised her to  take "as a symbol of a commander's  authority on board".  

"I do not believe I will have to use it," Whitson said in  Russian with a smile.

"Well, let's  have it, just in case."