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An 'astronaut' or 'cosmonaut' ( IPA: ) is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft.^[1] While generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Until 2003, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the first sub-orbital flight of the privately-funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created—the commercial astronaut. With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.
The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary. The FAI defines spaceflight as any flight over 100 kilometres (62 miles). However, in the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 80 kilometres (50 miles) are awarded astronaut wings.
As of June 13, 2007, a total of 460 humans from 39 countries have gone into space according to the FAI guideline, while 466 people qualify under the U.S. definition. Of those totals, 456 people have reached Earth orbit or beyond and 24 people have traveled beyond Low Earth Orbit. Space travelers have spent over 30,000 person-days (or a cumulative total of over 82 years) in space, including over 100 person-days of spacewalks.^[2]

Contents

Terminology

Space travel milestones

Training

Insignia

Deaths

See also

References

External links

Terminology

In the United States and many other English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an ''astronaut''.^[3] The term derives from the Greek words ''ástron'' (star) and ''nautes'' (sailor). The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his short story ''The Death's Head Meteor'' in 1930. The word itself had been known earlier. For example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book ''Across the Zodiac'', "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In ''Les Navigateurs de l'Infini'' (1925) of J.-H. Rosny aîné the word ''astronautique'' (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied (in 1784) to balloonists.
NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps.^[4]
By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a ''cosmonaut'' in English texts. The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word космонавт (transliteration: ''kosmonavt'', IPA ), which in turn derives from the Greek words ''kosmos'' (universe) and ''nautes'' (sailor).^[3] For the most part, "cosmonaut" and "astronaut" are synonyms in all languages, and the usage of choice is often dictated by political reasons.
On March 14, 1995, astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, arguably becoming the first "American cosmonaut" in the process.
In Chinese, the term ''yǔhángyuán'' (宇航员) has long been used for astronauts. More recently, official reports have used the term "hángtiānyuán" (航天员). The term ''taikonaut'' (, literally "space person") is often used by Western news media for professional space travelers from China. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (赵里昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups, while Chen Lan, almost simultaneously, used it in Western media. Official English texts issued by the Chinese government use ''astronaut'' while texts in Russian use ''cosmonaut''.^[6][7]
While no nation other than Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), the United States, and China has launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term ''spationaut'' (French spelling: ''spationaute'') is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word ''spatium'' or "space".

Space travel milestones

The first human in space was Russian 'Yuri Gagarin', who was launched into space on April 12 1961 aboard Vostok 1. The first woman was Russian Valentina Tereshkova, launched into space in June 1963 aboard Vostok 6.
Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, while the first American woman in space was Sally Ride on June 18, 1983.
The first mission to orbit the moon was ''Apollo 8'', which included William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968. On 15 October 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.
The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, an MIT researcher who flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-9 in 1983.^[8] In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first commercial space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, who paid for his flight. The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito onboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on 28 April 2001. The first person to fly on an entirely privately-funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a sub-orbital journey.
The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other socialist countries to fly on its missions. An example is Vladimir Remek, a Czech, who became the first non-Soviet European in space in 1978 on a Russian Soyuz rocket. On July 23 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of African descent to fly in space. (The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry.) In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first Chinese-born person in space; later that year, Rodolfo Neri became the first Mexican-born person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space. In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space.
The youngest person to fly in space is Russian Gherman Titov, who was roughly 26 years old when he flew Vostok 2 (he was also the first to suffer space sickness), and the oldest is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. The longest stay in space was 438 days by Russian Valeri Polyakov. As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut was seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The furthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (during the Apollo 13 emergency).

Training

The first astronauts, both in the U.S. and USSR, tended to be jet fighter pilots, often test pilots, from military backgrounds.
Astronauts may train for extra-vehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Astronauts-in-training may also experience short periods of weightlessness in aircraft such as the "vomit comet", the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004 respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights. Astronauts are also required to accrue a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center. Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are done out of Edwards Air Force Base.

Insignia

At NASA, persons selected as astronaut candidates receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, upon participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.

Deaths

Main articles: Space disaster


Training to become an astronaut and spaceflight operations can be dangerous. To date, nineteen people have been killed on five spaceflight missions, and at least ten more have been killed in ground-based training accidents. The five spaceflights which resulted in astronaut deaths are:

★ 1967 April 24 - Vladimir Komarov died during the landing of Soyuz 1 when the capsule's parachute failed to open properly.

★ 1967 November 15 - U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Michael J. Adams was killed when his X-15-3 research aircraft began to spin on re-entry and descent and disintegrated near Randsburg, California. Maj. Adams was posthumously awarded astronaut wings for his last flight in the X-15-3, which had attained an altitude of 266,000 feet (81.1 km).

★ 1971 June 30 - The crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov, suffocated after undocking from space station Salyut 1. A valve on their spacecraft had accidentally opened when the service module separated, letting their air leak out into space.

★ 1986 January 28 - The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' was destroyed 73 seconds after launch on STS-51-L with the loss of all seven crew members: Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, and Dick Scobee.

★ 2003 February 1 - The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. During the STS-107 mission, Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' broke apart while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. Damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) led to structural failure in the left wing, killing all seven crew members: Rick D. Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon.

See also

★ Astronaut Hall of Fame

★ Commercial Astronaut

★ List of astronauts by name

★ List of astronauts by selection

★ Timeline of astronauts by nationality

★ List of human spaceflights

★ List of space travelers by name

★ List of spacewalks and moonwalks

★ X-15 program

★ Spaceflight records

★ Shirley Thomas, author of ''Men of Space'' series (1960-1968)

★ Cosmonautics Day

★ Yuri's Night

★ Fallen Astronaut

★ List of fictional astronauts

★ Moon Landing

★ Mercury 13 - A group of 13 women who were tested, but never flew in space.

References

1. Definition of "astronaut" at The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000)
2. Manned astronautics: facts and figures, http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/other/stat_kk.sht, Alexander Anikeev, September 11, 2006, accessed September 15, 2006
3. ''From Astronautics to Cosmonautics'', Gruntman. BookSurge, North Charleston, S.C. (2007)
4.
Astronaut Biographies
5. ''From Astronautics to Cosmonautics'', Gruntman. BookSurge, North Charleston, S.C. (2007)
6. Chinese embassy in Russia press-release
7. Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan press-release
8. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lichtenberg-bk.html

External links

★ Encyclopedia Astronautica

★ Encyclopedia Astronautica: Phantom cosmonauts

★ collectSPACE: Astronaut appearances calendar

★ spacefacts

★ [1] Space and Astronautics News