Cosmonaut

Etymology and early usage

'Cosmonaut' is an anglicization of Russian космонавт. Greek kosmos ('universe') and nautes ('sailor') combine into 'sailor of the universe', set against the American 'astronaut', the star sailor; the second element is the same Greek word in both.

The word appears to derive from космонавтика, 'cosmonautics'. That term first appeared in the title of Ary Sternfeld's Initiation à la Cosmonautique, presented in 1933 and published in 1937 in the USSR, and through him Russian words such as космонавт and космодром entered the language. Before that, the Russian alternative zvezdoplavanie ('sailing among the stars') was widely used.

The coinage of космонавт is credited to the Soviet aeronautics and spaceflight pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900-1974). The Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics states that the very idea of the word 'cosmonaut', and the creation of a corps of civilian cosmonauts, belong to him; Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine and Russian outlets also report that he coined it. Russian reporting presents this as one possible theory, crediting him with coining and popularising the word in the Russian aerospace community.

In fiction the word first appeared in 1950, in Viktor Saparin's novella 'Новая планета' (A New Planet); 'cosmonautics' has been recorded in dictionaries since 1958.

Becoming the official designation

When Yuri Gagarin's status had to be determined, a council of leading specialists including Sergei Korolev and Mstislav Keldysh decided that 'cosmonaut' was the more suitable term. From November 1960 official documents renamed the 'pilot-astronaut' as 'pilot-cosmonaut', whereas 1959 Soviet Air Force orders still spoke of selecting 'astronauts'. The word spread widely after Gagarin's flight of 12 April 1961; in the 4th edition of Ozhegov's dictionary, published in late 1960, космонавт was still defined as 'one who will make flights into space'.

Institutions followed. On 30 April 1961 a decree of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers approved the 'Statute on Cosmonauts of the USSR', replaced in 2017 by a Russian Federation statute that established two categories, cosmonaut-tester and cosmonaut-researcher. The honorary title Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation was established by Russian Federation law No. 2555-1 of 20 March 1992 and is conferred by the President on pilot-cosmonauts who have performed outstanding space flights; since 1992 it has been awarded to 61 people, 58 men and 3 women.

Examples

The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space; he and five others were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961. The female cosmonaut corps was formed in February 1962, and in 1963 Valentina Tereshkova became the first female cosmonaut, flying Vostok 6 on 16 June and orbiting the Earth 48 times. No other Soviet woman flew until Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

Personnel from other countries flew under the Interkosmos programme. In 1978 the Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek became the first person from outside the USSR or the United States to reach space. In 1990 the journalist Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveller, flying to Mir under a commercial arrangement with a Japanese TV station, and was referred to at the time as a 'research cosmonaut'. On 14 March 1995 Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on a Russian launch vehicle, and thus the first 'American cosmonaut'.

Today the Roscosmos cosmonaut corps selects, trains and supplies cosmonauts as crew for Russian and international missions, based at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City; it was formed in 1960, with Gagarin its first chief. As of September 2026 the corps had 21 active cosmonauts, 1 woman and 20 men, all selected in 1996 or later. Entry requires Russian citizenship, age up to 35, higher education, English, medical and psychological testing and a body weight of up to 90 kg; CPSU membership was a prerequisite during the Soviet era.

Distinctions

The two concepts are largely synonymous, and until the end of the Cold War the choice of term usually reflected the speaker's political allegiance. They were not fully interchangeable: in Russian usage 'astronaut' was reserved for a cosmonaut of the distant future making interstellar flights, so it could appear only in science fiction.

National definitions of space flight also differed. The FAI treats flight above 100 km as space flight and the US Air Force uses above 50 miles (80.467 km), while Russia counts only orbital flight, a craft completing at least one revolution around the Earth. That is why reported cosmonaut totals vary.

Russian practice distinguishes the working cosmonaut from the honorific title: 'Pilot-Cosmonaut' is conferred only after a completed space flight, whereas in the United States a person beginning training under a state programme is styled an astronaut immediately. X-15 pilots who flew above 50 miles were initially not called astronauts.

The distinction is not limited to Russia and the United States. Chinese crews are called taikonauts, from Mandarin tàikōng ('space'), Chinese official media uses hángtiānyuán, and other national terms include French spationaute and German Raumfahrer. In the United States the choice of word itself was contested: in 1959 NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden preferred 'cosmonaut', flight in and to the broader cosmos, over 'astronaut', but most members of the Space Task Group preferred 'astronaut', which survived by common usage.