Talk:Astronaut

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Frequently asked questions

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Does use of the terms "astronaut" and "cosmonaut" violate neutral-point-of-view policy or constitute systemic bias? (No.)

No. Astronaut was used by the United States for its first space travelers in 1961, as was cosmonaut by the Soviet Union. In today's age of the International Space Station, the terms serve a valid distinction, as persons launched by the US are called astronauts and persons launched by Russia are called cosmonauts, regardless of their nationality.

Should the term "taikonaut" be used to designate Chinese space travelers? (Not necessarily.)

No real-world consensus seems to exist. Taikonaut seems to be a neologism favored by some English-language news media organizations. The Chinese government officially uses both astronaut and cosmonaut in text issued in English and Russian, respectively. The native Chinese phrases used officially for "space navigating personnel" do not translate easily into a single English word. "Taikonaut" is an Anglicization of the Chinese for "spaceman" popularized in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Astronaut was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 12, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

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History and general overhaul

Having a level 4 article classified as C class is honestly nothing short of an embarrassment, and I think the biggest problem is that this article just doesn't go into the history of manned spaceflight at all, its all just definitions and technicalities. There is a section on "milestones" but its formatted like a list and just makes the whole article read even more broken up and confusing. I probably won't have the time to write up a whole new section by myself but a good place to start would be pooling together a bunch of potential sources here so that we can use them later. Orchastrattor (talk) 21:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 16 September 2021

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Please change "ESA envisions to recruit an astronaut with a physical disability" to "ESA envisions recruiting an astronaut with a physical disability". Bad grammar. 2001:BB6:4713:4858:7DCC:1F54:AB7A:19CD (talk) 12:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:57, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Space travel(l)er

I changed the redirect for Space traveller form here to List of space travellers by first flight (I also changed/created redirects for one l and plural s variants pointing to the same place; Space traveler ‎ was previously pointing to human spaceflight and the plural ones did not exist). See also Talk:List_of_space_travellers_by_first_flight#Astronaut_definition. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:59, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First ESA parastronaut selected

On November 23, 2022, it was announced that John McFall (athlete) was chosen to be the first ESA parastronaut. The article should be updated to reflect this. 212.186.238.122 (talk) 15:02, 23 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese for 'spaceman'

This is probably a generally accepted translation for 太空人 (tàikōng rén), and probably how they translate it into English in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. That said, there is generally no gender attached to the Chinese character 人 (rén), meaning person, people etc. Nevertheless, without context attached to it, when reading, it is sometimes assigned a male gender by the reader. Also tàikōng rén would be the mainland Mandarin (national Chinese) pinyin romanization for 太空人. The romanization for Canatonese, as mainly spoken in Hong Kong, would be different (possibly: Taai hang yan?), and Taiwan use the Wade-Giles romanization (possibly: t'ai k'ung jen?). I am probably being a bit pedantic here, but thought to add a comment nonetheless. DeptfordDave JC (talk) 17:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Space tourists

This statement needs updating: "a generally-accepted but unofficial term for a paying non-crew passenger who flies a private non-NASA or military vehicles above 50 miles (80 km) is a space tourist (as of 2020[needs update], nobody has yet qualified for this status)." People obviously do qualify at this point, including William Shatner. The wording is also mangled in multiple ways and should read "a generally-accepted but unofficial term for a paying non-crew passenger who flies in a private (non-NASA, non-military) vehicle above 50 miles (80 km) is a space tourist ...", probably followed by a mention of the first qualifying instance. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:34, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Small mistake many people make…

Astronauts and Cosmonauts are different. Astronauts land on space bodies like the moon and artificial ones too, like the ISS (International Space Station) Cosmonauts just go into space, and don’t land on anything. DogeofWisdom69 (talk) 09:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take it... @DogeofWisdom69: How would you compare the achievements of, say, Scott Carpenter (an astronaut) and Yuri Malenchenko (a cosmonaut)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:34, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Claim not supported by the sources cited

In the intro there is an allegation: "Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists."This claim has two apparent sources cited. I've just checked both of those sources and there is nothing in them to actually support this claim. This is misinformation being represented as reputable. 23.17.155.111 (talk) 21:43, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2025

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The Chinese terms should not be translated using the term “heaven”. This is a bad, fetishised translation. It means sky. “Sky navigator” not “heaven navigator”. 120.19.140.152 (talk) 04:56, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 09:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Parastronaut

If I got it right, "Parastronaut" is just a proposed designation, but hasn't been applied to any actual person that went to space. Even more, it breaks the current convention: either everybody is a [term] just by being in space, or we divide who is and who isn't a [term] based on their activities in space. Not surprisingly, the only person who was designated a "Parastronaut" rejects the term: calling him "something similar to astronaut but not quite" instead of "astronaut", because of things about his body, is condescending discrimination. As he said "I’m not a para-surgeon, I’m a surgeon. I’m not a para-dad, I’m a dad".

I propose to merge that info into the "Other terms" section, instead of having a "Parastronaut" section. At least unless we get to the point we have some actual "parastronaut" in space, who does not reject the term. Cambalachero (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]