Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Astronaut |
AstronautNoun1. A person trained to travel in a spacecraft; "the Russians called their astronauts cosmonauts". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Aerospace | 1. A person who rides in a space vehicle.2. Specifically, one of the test pilots selected to participate in Project Mercury, Project Gemini, Project Apollo, or any other United States program for manned space flight. (references) |
Transportation | A member of the crew of a manned spacecraft, authorized to control the spacecraft. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
An astronaut, cosmonaut or taikonaut is a person who travels into space, or who makes a career of doing so. The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary. In the United States, persons who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometers) are designated as astronauts. The FIA defines spaceflight as over 100 km. To March 3, 2003, a total of 437 humans by the US definition had spent a total of 26,320 crew-days in space including 98 crew-days of spacewalks. 431 people qualify under the FIA definition. Astronauts from at least 32 countries have gone into space.
By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian or Soviet government is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglification of the Russian word kosmonavt, which in turn derives from the Greek words kosmos, meaning "universe" and nautes, meaning "sailor". One could reasonably argue that "cosmonaut" is simply the Russian language word for "astronaut", which the media on both sides have chosen not to translate this way for 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.
The term taikonaut is used for astronauts from China. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term "taikong" (太空 in pinyin: tai4 kong1), Chinese for space. It is however unclear how to translate the "naut" term into Chinese, and simply using the term taikongren or taikongyuan (taikong person) is problematic since that term is used already to mean space alien.
Chinese officials and newspapers use the term yuhangyuan (宇航員) in Chinese, however, which roughly translates as "space navigator." Unlike the Soviet case, there are no Chinese objections, political or otherwise, to the English use of the term Chinese astronaut.
The first astronaut was Yuri Gagarin, who was launched into space in April 1961 aboard Vostok 1. The first woman astronaut was Valentina Tereshkova, who was launched into space in June 1963 aboard Vostok 6. Alan Shepard became the first American in space in May 1961. On October 15 2003 Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. Other ethnical Chinese that have been in space include Edward Lu (卢杰), Taylor Wang (王赣骏), Leroy Chiao (焦立中) and Fulin ZHANG (张福林) all of whom are in USA.
The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was roughly 26 years old when he flew Vostok 2, and the oldest is John Glenn who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. The longest stay in space was 438 days by Valeri Polyakov. Up to 2003, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut was seven. The furthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (during the Apollo 13 emergency).
Up until the end of the 1970s only Americans and Soviets were active astronauts. In 1976 the Soviets started the Intercosmos program with a first group of 6 cosmonauts from fellow socialist countries, a second group started training in 1978. At about the same time in 1978 the European Space Agency selected 4 astronauts to train for the first Spacelab mission on board of the Space Shuttle. In 1980 France started their own selection of astronauts (called spationauts), followed in 1982 by Germany, in 1983 by Canada, in 1985 by Japan and Italy in 1988. Several more international payload specialist were selected for the Space Shuttle, and also later for international Soyuz missions of Russia. In 1998 the European Space Agency formed a single astronaut corps of 18 by dissolving the former national corps of France, Germany and Italy.International Astronauts
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Astronaut."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| ASK | English | Astronaut Survival Kit | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: AstronautSynonyms: cosmonaut (n), spaceman (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Mariner | Aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist, airman, aviator, birdman, man-bird, wizard of the air, aviatrix, flier, pilot, test pilot, glider pilot, bush pilot, navigator, flight attendant, steward, stewardess, crew; astronaut, cosmonaut; parachutist, paratrooper. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Astronaut |
| English words defined with "astronaut": Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr., Alan Shepard, Armstrong ♦ Glenn ♦ John Glenn, John Herschel Glenn Jr. ♦ moonwalk ♦ Neil Armstrong ♦ Shepard, spacewalker. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "astronaut": Inertial balance ♦ NASA's space-station helmet ♦ silver tux. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Astronaut" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (astronaut, spaceman), Czech (astronaut, spaceman), Danish (astronaut, spaceman), Dutch (astronaut, spaceman), German (astronaut, spaceman), Romanian (astronaut, cosmonaut, spaceman), Serbo-Croatian (astronaut, spaceman), Swedish (astronaut). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I wasn't like every other kid, you know, who dreams about being an astronaut, I was always more interested in what bark was made out of on a tree. (Zoolander; writing credit: Drake Sather; Ben Stiller) No astronaut would enter the capsule carrying his air conditioner. (You Only Live Twice; writing credit: Roald Dahl) | |
Lyrics | I kick plenty of ass, so call me an astronaut (Keep Their Headz Ringin; performing artist: Dr. Dre) | |
Clever | Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Astronaut (1972) To Be an Astronaut (1992) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Dr. Wernher von Braun and Astronaut Cooper. Credit: NASA. |  | Astronaut John Glenn being Honored. Credit: NASA. |
 | Seven Members of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees in 1995. Credit: NASA. |  | First Female Astronaut Candidates. Credit: NASA. |
 | Astronaut Administrator Richard Truly. Credit: NASA. |  | Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt standing next to boulder at Taurus-Littrow during third EVA. Credit: NASA. |
 | Astronaut Jim Irwin sets up the first Lunar Roving Vehicle during Apollo 15. Credit: NASA. |  | Photograph of a Pacific atoll taken by an astronaut. Credit: NOAA in Space. |
 | U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander Gen. Gregory Martin; his wife, Wendy; Secretary of Defense William Cohen; his wife, Janet Langart Cohen; and former astronaut John Glenn, lead the troops and family members in celebrating the Secretary of Defense Holida. |  | "Close-up view of an astronaut's leg and foot and footprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 lunar surface extravehicular activity. Astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command Service Modules in lunar orbit while Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot, explored the Moon." By Neil Armstrong , July 20, 1969. Credit: National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Information Agency. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | For the first time, a previously experienced, but now elderly astronaut, Senator John Glenn, participated. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Astronaut" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Astronaut" is used about 85 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 85 | 35,870 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "astronaut": astronaut-speak. | |
Ending with "astronaut": ancient-astronaut. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "astronaut"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | astronaut (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | ملاح فضائي, رجل فضاء, رائد فضاء (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Basque | astronauta. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | астронавт. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 宇航" , 宇航员 (astronautic, astronautical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | kosmonaut (cosmonaut, spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | astronaut (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | ruimtevaarder (spaceman), astronaut (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | astronaŭto (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | فضانورد (Spaceman), مسافرفضاءی (Spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | avaruuslentäjä (cosmonaut), astronautti (cosmonaut), kosmonautti (cosmonaut). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | astronaute. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | romtefarder (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Weltraumfahrer (space traveler, spaceman), astronaut (spaceman), Astronauten (astronauts). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | αστροναύτης (cosmonaut). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | אסטרו אוט (spaceman), טיס חלל (cosmonaut). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | ûrhajós (cosmonaut, spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | astronot, antariksawan (cosmonaut), angkasawan (space man). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | astronauta (spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 宇宙飛行士 , アステカ族 (ASPAC, asparagus, asterisk, astringent, astringent lotion, Astrodome, astrology, astro-rama, Aztec). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | うちゅうひ"うし, アストロノート . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 우주 비행사. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | shiaulteyr rollageagh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occitan | astronauta. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | astronautay astronauta (spaceman). (various references) astronaut (cosmonaut, spaceman). (various references) астронавт. (various references) moetasebakeng. (various references) astronaut (spaceman), kosmonaut (spaceman). (various references) astronauta (spaceman). (various references) astronaut, rymdpilot (spaceman), rymdfarare (spaceman). (various references) astronot (spaceman, spacewoman). (various references) komonawt (r) (cosmonaut). (various references) астронавт (astrogator, spaceman). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | astron. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "astronaut": astronautic, astronautical, astronautically, astronautics, astronauts. (additional references) | |
| |
"Astronaut" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Astolat, astonaut, astronaunt, astronot, astronut, atronaut, Natronatum. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "astronaut" (pronounced a"strunÄ't) |
| 4 | -u n Ä' t | Aquanaut. |
| 3 | -n Ä' t | topknot, whatnot. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-n-o-r-s-t-t-u" | |
-1 letter: arnattos, saturant. | |
-2 letters: anattos, arnatto, attorns, rattans, rattons, santour, tantras, tartans, truants. | |
-3 letters: anatto, aortas, attars, attorn, ottars, outran, outsat, ratans, rattan, ratton, ruanas, santur, sonata, stator, strata, strunt, tantra, tarots, tartan, tatars, taunts, tronas, trouts, truant, tutors. | |
-4 letters: anoas, antas, antra, aorta, arson, attar, aunts, auras, autos, ottar, rants, ratan, ratos, roans, roast. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-n-o-r-s-t-t-u" | |
+1 letter: astronauts, saturation. | |
+2 letters: astronautic, attenuators, maturations, natatoriums, naturopaths, saturations. | |
+3 letters: astronautics, cosurfactant, gastrulation, gratulations, instauration, masturbation, portmanteaus, salutatorian, transudation. | |
+4 letters: adulterations, anfractuosity, articulations, astronautical, autorotations, congratulates, cosurfactants, denaturations, gastrulations, instaurations, masturbations, naturopathies, renaturations, salutatorians, strangulation, subsaturation, tetradynamous, transmountain, transmutation, transudations, ultramontanes. | |
+5 letters: acculturations, argumentations, authenticators, authoritarians, authorizations, brutalizations, cauterizations, congratulators, counterassault, counterattacks, illustrational, intracutaneous, matriculations, monounsaturate, neuroanatomist, oversaturating, oversaturation, pasteurization, postgraduation, ritualizations, strangulations, subsaturations, transcutaneous, transductional, transmutations, transvaluation, triangulations, ultramarathons, ultramontanism, unsatisfactory. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
