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| | Astronaut (in USA), also called cosmonaut in other countries is a person, who had completed a spaceflight (or undergoing special training as an astronaut and included in the astronauts group).
The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary in various countries. 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. In Russia, space flight is called orbit travel – space craft should make at least one turn around the Earth. This is why the total number of astronauts differs from country to country.
As on August 9, 2007, total a total of 460 humans from 39 countries have gone into space according to the FAI guideline; 4 persons , competed spaceflight along ballistic trajectory at an altitude of above 100 km (guidelines of FAI); 6 persons have completed the space flight along ballistic trajectory at an altitude of more than 50 miles but less than 100 km (Guidelines of US Air Force) (Refer — Space flights «X-15» to an altitude of above 50 miles (Table).
Amongst the astronauts are 48 women.
As per the information on December 23, 2005, space travelers have spent over 29.000 person-days in space, including more than 100 person-days of spacewalks. Representatives of over 37 countries have reached Earth orbit.
In United States, a professional space traveler is traditionally called an astronaut. The term derives from the Greek words: astron (Greek αστρον), which means “star” and already known word nautes (Greek ηαυτα) — sailor. The first known use of the term “Astronaut” in the modern sense was by American fiction writer Neil R. Jones in his short story “The Death’s Head Meteor” in 1930. It is possible that, the new word may have been inspired by “aeronaut” (known since 1784) an older term for an air traveler first applied to balloonists.
Persons, who chose space travel as a profession, are called “Professional Astronauts”. Till recently, space flights of professional astronauts were prepared only by the Governments however with the first sub-orbital flight of the privately-funded “SpaceShipOne” in 2004, the entire scenario has changed. New professionals have appeared, for whom the training and spaceflight are provided by commercial organizations. Apart from this, development of space tourism forced NASA and Russian Federation Space Agency to use one more term: — “spaceflight participant”.
The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin. He was launched into space on April 12, 1961 aboard Vostok 1.
Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961 who was launched into space aboard “Mercury -3”.
The first woman astronaut was Valentina Tereshkova, was launched into space on June 16, 1963 aboard Vostok-6.
First astronaut from Asia is a Vietnamese Mr. Pham Tuan. He was sent into space on June 23, 1980 aboard space shuttle “Soyuz-37”.
First astronaut from Africa: Mark Shuttleworth (South Africa) was a member of the crew as spaceflight participant of mission “Soyuz TM-34”, which was launched on April 25, 2002.
First Chinese astronaut: Yang Liwei, who was launched on October 15, 2003 aboard “Shenzhou-5”.
Youngest astronaut to be in space was Gherman Titov . He was l;launched into space aboard “Vostok-2” when the astronaut was just 26 yrs old.
The elderly astronaut was John Glenn. He was aboard space shuttle “Discovery STS-95” at the age of 77.
Russian astronaut Sergei Krikalev holds the world record for longest time spent in space: 755 days on August 23, 2005.
More number of spaceflights: 7 in 2003 were held by Jerry L.Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz.
Maximum distance from Earth was traveled by crew of “Apollo-13” - 401056 km.
First non-governmental astronaut was Christa McAuliffe, one of the crew members of shuttle “Challenger”, which disintegrated 73 seconds into its flight killing all the crew members on January 28, 1986.
The first person to fly on an entirely privately-funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight on a sub-orbital journey on June 21, 2004.
The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito onboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on April 28, 2001.
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