Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut (Russian: космона́вт IPA: [kəsmʌˈnaft]) is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. There is some debate as to whether a person who has been trained, but has not yet flown in space, should be considered an astronaut.[citation needed] While generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is also sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Until recently, professional space travelers were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the launch of the privately-funded SpaceShipOne in 2005, a new category of professional 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 professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those agencies.
The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary. The FAI defines spaceflight as any flight over 100 kilometres (62 miles). 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 September 9, 2006, a total of 448 humans from 37 countries have gone into space according to the FAI guideline, while 454 people qualify under the U.S. definition. Of those totals, 444 people have reached Earth orbit or beyond[citation needed] and 24 people have completely left the Earth's orbit. Space travelers have spent over 29,000 person-days (or a cumulative total of over 77 years) in space including over 100 person-days of spacewalks.[1]
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Space travel milestones
history to use a rocket for spaceflight was made in the 16th century by a Chinese Ming dynasty official, a skilled stargazer named Wan Hu. Wan fashioned a crude vehicle out of a sturdy chair and two kites affixed with 47 of the largest gunpowder-filled rockets he could find, and had his servants light them as he sat on the chair. The resultant explosion presumably killed him. [2]
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 in space in May 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.[3] 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).
Astronaut training
The first astronauts, both in the U.S. and USSR, tended to be jet fighter pilots, often test pilots, from military backgrounds. U.S. astronauts receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge upon completion of astronaut training and participation in a space flight.
In the United States, persons selected as astronaut candidates receive silver Astronaut wings. Once they have flown in space they receive gold Astronaut wings. The United States Air Force also presents Astronaut wings to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.
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.
Astronaut deaths
To date, eighteen people have been killed on space missions, and at least ten more have been killed in ground-based training accidents. Fourteen of these have died in the Space Shuttle program, during mishaps in missions STS-51-L (Space Shuttle Challenger disaster) and STS-107 (Space Shuttle Columbia disaster).
See also
- 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
References
- ^ Manned astronautics: facts and figures, http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/other/stat_kk.sht, Alexander Anikeev, September 11, 2006, accessed September 15, 2006
- ^ http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/30/china.wanhu/index.html
- ^ http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lichtenberg-bk.html