First Chinese astronaut[edit]

Why is Yang Liwei listed as the "first Chinese-launched astronaut" and not simply as "the first Chinese astronaut"? Was someone from China launched by the Russians or someone from Taiwan launched by the US? Rmhermen 13:15, Oct 15, 2003 (UTC)

He is also the first astronaut of chinese nationality. But Taylor Gun-Jin Wang (born 1940 in Shanghai) was the first chinese, but he became US citizen in 1975, well before his flight. And Shannon Lucid was also born in Shanghai... andy 13:26, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Second oldest Astronaut?[edit]

At 62 years old, will Mike Melvill, the pilot of SpaceshipOne on it's maiden space flight on June 21st, be the second oldest astronaut behind John Glenn? - Alan Anderton

Story Musgrave (the oldest fellow I thought of) was 61 for his last flight. Who held the honor before John Glenn? -- ke4roh 20:19, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

X-15 pilots?[edit]

Lots of X-15 pilots missing from here. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 05:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this list should include mention of the pilots who are recognized by the united states as being "astronauts". perhaps as a separate section, but they need to be listed. Mlm42 10:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First Hispanic astronaut[edit]

Franklin Chang-Diaz is listed as "first Hispanic astronaut". He first flew in space in 1986. Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez flew in space in 1980, launched by the Soviet Union for Cuba. It appears that Tamayo Méndez was the first hispanic in space. Reubenbarton 21:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First person in space twice[edit]

First Asian-born person in space[edit]

William Anders is listed as the first Asian-born person in space, but his flight was in 1968. In 1961 Gherman Titov went to space (the second person to do so). He was born in the Altai Region of the USSR, in Asia. --82.142.124.93 12:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed attribution on Anders' entry. --82.142.124.93 12:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Astronauts who have died indication[edit]

Should astronauts who have died have thier names marked with a cross (†) symbol? Seems a bit presumptuous to me when clearly several of those who fall into the category were NOT christians. I think it should be replaced with a more religiously inconsequential/unrelated symbol like an asterisk. --Deglr6328 08:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nancy Sherlock[edit]

January 7th User:JStone added Nancy Sherlock to the list. Nancy Sherlock is the same person as Nancy Currie with the full name of Nancy Jane Sherlock Currie. Sherlock was her maiden name and she married David Currie. Does anyone know if Nancy is divorced and has dropped the Currie ? How do we deal with the women's maiden names in the future? The Frenchwoman Claudie Haigneré flew her first mission as Claudie André-Deshays on Soyuz TM-24 in 1997 to MIR, and later as Claudie Haigneré on Soyuz TM-33 in 2002 to MIR, after her marriage with Jean-Pierre Haigneré.--Necessary Evil 23:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List people whose name changes with the most current version of the name. The wonderful thing about Wikipedia is that it can be easily changed and why not list people by the name they want to called? If John Glenn becomes John Glen-Smith, that's how he should be listed. Rillian 00:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You have missed my point, how do we avoid redundant names on the list? If we decide to delete Nancy Sherlock, someone in the future might add Nancy Sherlock again. Every space person, should only be on the list once, else the number of astronauts will be to high.
I will suggest that an "unflagged" line with the alter ego plus see Nancy ... would make sure that; A) An unflagged name would not be counted, and B) The second name will not be added by a newcomer as a new astronaut.
Regarding John Glen-Smith, I believe that the name (including nicknames) used during the space flight, should be on the list. If some East European Cosmonaut from the seventies, in his senile years, becomes a member of a tribe, and changes his name to Vfglkyuh, your suggestion would let Vfglkyuh replace the "historical" name. Not very helpful, IMHO. A John Glen-Smith should be in John Glenn article.
Please don't tamper with my Talk contributions, Rillian. --Necessary Evil 14:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that a non-hyperlinked listing with a "See ..." pointing people to the correct entry is the best bet to prevent entry of duplicates. Suggest that it only needs to be done for people whose name changed after becoming astronauts and/or are commonly known by more than one name, i.e. we don't need a listing for every female astronaut whose name changed at marriage. Regards Rillian 01:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Gave it a try on Sherlock. Removed the flag and other details to clearly indicate that the entry does not represent another astronaut, but is just a pointer to the correct listing in the C section. Rillian 13:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about...[edit]

Roger B. Chaffee, who haven't been in space, is now on the list. Challenger's last pilot; Michael J. Smith should therefore be on the list too.
Jake Garn and Bill Nelson flew of political reasons, so did the Intercosmos cosmonauts. They should be removed too. Necessary Evil 21:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Garn and Nelson aren't on this list any more, they have been moved to the List of space travelers by name. Smith should be added along with anyone who began a training program to be a professional astronaut. Regarding Intercosmos, did the participants consider themselves has having chosen space travel as a career? Did any of them fly in space more than once? Rillian 22:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another consideration - Helen Sharman - was she a professional astronaut? Rillian 22:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Intercosmos cosmonauts were chosen as representatives of Soviet puppet regimes, as an act of "solidarity". None of them flew again. Helen Sharman won a competition for one space flight. I think astronauts should have been a member of an astronaut corps to be on the list. Necessary Evil 22:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


It looks like Mike Barratt is missing from the list: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/barratt-mr.html but I'm not sure how to add to the list. Alex, 15 September 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.196.239.33 (talk) 01:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Helen Sharman[edit]

Helen Sharman is not listed here (yet):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Sharman —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.106.32.127 (talk) 20:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Was she a member of an astronaut corps? Else look at List of space travelers by name. Necessary Evil 20:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And Yuri Gagarin was? JamesCollins (talk) 20:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal[edit]

Is the fact that a few space travellers may not have been professional astronauts sufficient reason to maintain both List of astronauts by name and List of space travelers by name? Either the "tourists" could be flagged in the one list with some graphical device, or, perhaps even better, a separate list of non-professionals could be compiled. It seems to me like an awful lot of unnecessary duplication the way it is right now... Matt 20:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Actually, the reverse is also true. There are many astronauts (e.g. Chaffee and Acaba) who have never flown in space. This page is a list of anyone trained as a professional astronaut, regardless of whether they made it into space. The other list is for anyone who has flown in space, regardless of whether they were a professional astronaut. There is value in having both lists. Rillian 20:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correction, Acada has now flown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:248:4C80:A234:9D58:52C2:AA9F:2ED9 (talk) 21:53, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement noted, but just to say that in my comment above I forgot to mention that the people who have actually flown need differentiating too. Thus, one list with some icons representing "professional (flown)", "professional (not flown)" and "non-professional". Matt 20:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC).

This proposal clearly has no support, so I have removed the templates. Matt 01:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

support it's an old proposal, but I would support a merger, if no improvement is made to minimize confusion caused to casual readers. Penyulap talk 04:40, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flags[edit]

Hi! I noticed that on this page (and on List of space travelers by name) there is no definition, what the flags next to the persons' names mean. Is it obvious? In most cases yes, in a few cases not at all. While it is clear that one person is US American and the other person is Russian, things can get complex when it comes to people who changed countries or countries that split or united. The absence of the definition has already caused discussions here and there. I think we need a definition and it should be noted on the page, in order to avoid unnecessary edits. My proposal: The flags denote the nationality (or the nationalities) of the person at the time of the flight. In case of several nationalities (either parallel or serial) we need several flags. So some examples:

I think the example of Jähn shows that the inclusion of previous or later nationalities leads to a confusing pattern of flags. Let's keep it simple and clear. Any comments or other proposals? --Asdert 18:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Second proposal: No double flags for double nationality. Every person represents one country or no country. One country for all those who were part of a national (or international in case of ESA) selection. Just one flag for Foale and Thomas, because they needed to be American to fly for NASA See clarification below. Two flags only for those cosmonauts that flew both as Soviets and as Russians. No flag for those persons, who didn't represent a country, but who represented a company (Melvill for Scaled Composites, Cenker for RCA) or just themselves (Tito and the others who paid for their own tickets). This reduces the number of flags significantly, but also the questionable cases. --Asdert 19:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Third Proposal: Flags for citizenship at the time of flight(s). If person holds valid dual citizenship at time of flight, then two flags. If citzenship changes between two flights, two flags. No flags for previous or later citizenships. On a related note, not sure what you mean by "they needed to be American to fly for NASA. If you mean, "must be American citizen to be a member of the NASA Astronaut Corps", I would agree (although there may be an exception). If you meant, "must be American to fly on a NASA mission", I disagree as there are many examples to the contrary. Rillian 00:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rillian, sorry when I wasn't clear in my second proposal. To be a NASA astronaut, you must be US citizen (are there exceptions?). As Thomas and Sellers were not part of a Australian/British manned space program, in my second proposal they wouldn't get the Australian/British flag. Non-US astronauts on NASA flights represent their country or ESA, so a flag for them. Just a proposal. --Asdert 09:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
People not from the USA or Russia will inevitably place their national flags at astronauts/space travellers with some association with their countries. If we choose one flag only and no flag for space tourists, we must prepare ourselves for a lot of reverting.
To Rillian. Valid dual citizenship can be difficult to know. What would be the reliable source? E.g. Sellers has information in neither nasa nor spacefacts regarding his citizenship. Necessary Evil 12:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reliable source would be whatever citations the editor would provide. If consensus is that a particular source is not reliable, the flag would be removed, i.e. the burden of proof is on the editor to show that Foale had both U.K. and U.S. citzenships at the time of his flight. Rillian 13:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rilian and Necessary Evil. I admit that I have expected more contributors for this subject. I think that the Third Proposal "Flags for citizenship at the time of flight(s)" seems to be the best criterion. Should we go for that? That would leave most entries as they are. Some Russians will get a Soviet flag for their pre-1992 flights. Jähn's only flag would be East German (no DDR-Leugnung), Merbold's only flag West German. I think this is an acceptable agreement until a new discussion is started with a different result. What do you think? --Asdert 19:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Third proposal is OK with me. To save us a lot of trouble, we might add <!--Not a Chinese citizen at the time of flight--> or similar at the removal of the illegal flags. Necessary Evil 02:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I support the Third Proposal as well (pretty humble, since I proposed it) and also second Necessary Evil's suggestion of including an inline comment to try an minimize changes that conflict with this consensus. Rillian 13:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this constructive discussion. I inserted the definition of the flags in the article and added a few Soviet flags for those cosmonauts that flew before 1992, too. --Asdert 22:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria?[edit]

If this list is to include all astronauts, whether they have flown in space or not, then why does it include (e.g.) Sigmund Jähn but not his backup, Eberhard Köllner? For that matter, why doesn't it include Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, and his backup Faiz Khaleed, the Angkasawan cosmonauts? Their position doesn't differ in any great respect from that of the Intercosmos cosmonauts. RandomCritic 13:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per the consensus definition at the top of the list "This is an alphabetical list of astronauts, people who trained to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. While the term astronaut is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists, this article only lists professional astronauts. A list of everyone who has flown in space can be found at List of space travelers by name." If you feel there are people missing who meet this definition, be bold and add them. If you are unsure, propose them here for discussion.
Regarding Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor and Faiz Khaleed, since NASA and RKA labeled their role aboard Soyuz/ISS as spaceflight participant and not flight engineer, I would argue that they don't meet the definition as they were not "crew members". As to the Intercosmos fliers - they are in a grey area. Their seats on Soyuz flights were given by the Soviet Union to build solidarity with other socialist countries, most of them flew only once, and they did not become members of the Soviet cosmonaut corps. I would say it depends on their role during the missions. Were they crew members or passengers? Rillian 14:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Backups receive exactly the same training as prime candidates, so for every person who actually flew in space and is on this list, his or her backup should be here too per the "people who trained to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member" criterion. So the article is not being consistent. The article on Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor also suggests that he is in pretty much the same "gray area" as the Intercosmos cosmonauts, and particularly that the term "spaceflight participant" is not necessarily exclusive of participating as a crew member. The term may be interpreted a bit differently in Russia and in English-speaking countries. But therein lies a problem -- we cannot mind-read the assignments, but need a metric that can be applied equally to anybody -- how could we know whether a given person is considered "as a crew member" or not? And by whom? Things like sponsorship, sources of funding, etc. are matters of record. The question "is so and so a member of the crew" is much less capable of a definite answer. RandomCritic 00:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly agree that "back-ups" along with anyone trained to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member should be listed. There are already many people on this list who trained but never flew in space. Please keeping adding those that you find, e.g. many of the Chinese astronauts who have trained but not yet flown are not not on the list.
Regarding spaceflight participants. The defintion on that article states "spaceflight participant is a term used by NASA and the RKA for people who travel aboard space missions coordinated by those agencies who are not part of the crew." For those space travelers labeled spaceflight participant, we can definitively say they are not crew members. As to Intercosmos and others, we should look to the available evidence such as the fact that they did not become members of the the RKA cosmonaut corps, i.e. their flights were a one-off, special situation and they were not professional astronauts. Rillian 01:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is also debatable. Consider the case of Jean-Loup Chrétien -- Intercosmos cosmonaut, but he performed an EVA and also flew on the Space Shuttle. And what about all of the Payload Specialists on the shuttle? They weren't career astronauts, as their presence was contingent on the existence of specific payloads; but many of them went into space multiple times. RandomCritic 04:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting analogy can be drawn to aircrew member. To quote that article "In the United Kingdom, the Air Navigation Order, which is an act of parliament, makes clear who the members of the aircrew are. Just because someone is working on the aircraft does not automatically make them part of the aircrew. For example manufacturer's representatives working on the flight deck to study the operation or behaviour of equipment are not members of the aircrew. This definition is justified as such personnel are certainly not in control of the aircraft and not responsible for the progress of the flight." Similarly, simply being trained to fly on a spacecraft does not make one an astronaut. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was not in the chain of command on the Soyuz or ISS and was not responsible for the operation of the flight. Yes, he may have had certain training on how to safely fly in the Soyuz and how to be safe on the ISS, but he was not a crew member. Rillian 01:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are Mission Specialists on the Shuttle in the chain of command? Are they responsible for the operation of the flight? They don't fly the shuttle -- but they do EVAs, manipulate robot arms, perform experiments. Just because a space traveler has a duty other than piloting doesn't mean that he or she is a non-astronaut. RandomCritic 04:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Venus signs - really?[edit]

Come on, do we really need those little Venus signs to denote that the astronaut in question was female? May as well have Mars ones too. Plus the ethnicity of all of them, as that seems to be important as well. But apparently only if they're not white. 130.56.71.50 (talk) 05:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any problem with an indication of gender, with two provisos. First, there should be some indication of the intended meaning; as it is now it may be mysterious to some readers. Second, it needs to be applied consistently; I know that K. Megan McArthur is female, but she has no symbol by her name. There may well be others missing. 170.140.151.65 (talk) 22:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the opening comment. The gender symbols are unnecessary. I don't see them used in other Wikipedia people lists. I vote for deletion. ShelbyBell (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like the indication of gender, with some reservations. Can we just have a word or letter, instead of a symbol, and can we apply it to male astronauts as well? I don't want to be all over-sensitive and stuff, but -- while it is true that the majority of astronauts have been males, and will be for some time, it might be better to not imply that astronauts in general are male. The choice of labeling only female astronauts (as exceptions to a pattern) would seem to create and reinforce that implication. The choice of pink is also difficult to read, and placing a small image next to an item in a list is not necessarily present in all browsers -- that is, there may be accessibility issues. Labeling male astronauts would also be more consistent, building on one of the comments above. Proposal: Yes to indicator of gender, No to just labeling females, No to using an image (use words instead). Niceoboe (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines[edit]

This article needs tougher guidelines on who is to be counted as an 'astronaut', and those guidelines need to be enforced consistently -- in going through the list, I'm seeing several people who were only "scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists" at the time of their spaceflight. Also very unclear is the status of "commercial astronauts" -- the term seems to be a creation of the companies involved, and need not imply any degree of training comparable to that given by NASA or Roskosmos or the ESA or JAXA. Rather, the status is contingent upon flights above a certain altitude, and so corresponds to WP's usage of the term "space traveler". Payload specialists and "spaceflight participants" are other gray areas. RandomCritic (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC) Agreed at the minimum there needs to be a denotation such as an asterisk to indicate if someone has not flown in space — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moneya (talk • contribs) 17:17, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures?[edit]

I am wondering whether there is any reason why there are pictures of some but not other astronauts. my concern is that they are making the ones with pictures seem more important — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moneya (talk • contribs) 21:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • support WP:NPOV WP:AL Due to the large number of individuals listed on this page, not all can be pictured and still allow the page to load quickly, it would make the page too long. Additional criteria is required for the inclusion of photos of an individual. I will support First Man, First Woman and First on Moon, would anyone care to support that ? Penyulap talk 04:20, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. As with any article, editors should use good judgement and include pictures that improve the article and illustrate key concepts described in the article. We don't need a fixed policy, just continue using good editorial judgement and be Bold. Rillian (talk) 12:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Title of article should be changed. (improved)[edit]

The name of the article itself should be changed to reflect that this is a list of professional astronauts rather than listing it in the first paragraph. Because this article is a list, people may arrive at the page and skip straight to finding the name of an individual and miss the qualification which is made in the lead. The distinction is not made in conversational usage, nor is it a widespread understanding. Penyulap talk 04:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list criteria matches the definition of astronaut - a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Who are these "non-professional astronauts" that people may be confused if they are not included on this list of astronauts? Rillian (talk) 12:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Distinction of female astronauts[edit]

208.107.74.4 removed the female markings because he or she felt that "No need for a distinction of female astronauts. Either have both male and female marked or none at all." This is not a minor edit, and should be discussed here first. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bjarni Tryggvason[edit]

Bjarni Tryggvason was born in Iceland so shouldn't the Icelandic flag be besides his name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.190.119.71 (talk) 18:29, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins (astronaut) was born in Rome, Italy. But he doesn't have an Italian flag besides his name. Bjarni Tryggvason sounds Icelandic, and AFAIK he is a Canadian of Icelandic descent. He flew in space as a Canadian and did not fly the Icelandic flag e.g. see File:Bjarni Tryggvason.jpg. If he was/still is a citizen of Iceland your Icelandic flag next to Maple Leaf is just fine! --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 00:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gender bias[edit]

I understand that this subject has already been addressed, but I am resurrecting this in a new thread. I entirely agree with 130.56.71.50, who stated that it is unfair that only females have gender denoted here. While knowing that yes, the majority of astronauts are male, that is true of a lot of professions. If we had a list of doctors on Wikipedia (which there probably is), would we exclusively indicate females there? How about police officers? Even if there would be, this is just really sexist. There's another list of astronauts (well, space travelers, but still) almost identical to this one, and the male symbols are indicated there, so why shouldn't they be here, if they can't be removed entirely? I don't really think they should be there at all, because it implies that gender matters when it comes to performance under extreme conditions, which, of course, IT DOES NOT. (I'm probably biased here, but that is a moot point.) But if there just has to be the gender indication there, they should definitely be used for both sexes. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 01:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Emphasis[edit]

I take issue with the bolding of certain names. It has been explained as an indication of who set foot on the Moon, but I find it discriminatory: the end result is a list emphasizing Americans, downplaying the pioneering contribution of other, non-American astronauts, like Yuri Gagarin, for instance. Moon-landing is a cherry-picked criterion for emphasis, and I suggest the removal of any merit-based emphasis on this list. The readers can find all the details of an astronaut's career in their pages. In my view, being the first person in space beats walking on the Moon. Heck, even being the first dog in space does. --Edwin Pixley (talk) 10:13, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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