Russian Life & People Digest
Question by dancingapple: What’s the difference between astronaut and cosmonaut ?
Are they the same?
Answers and Views:
Answer by ecolink
These are the same job, but done by people from different countries.
Space travelers from the United States (and possible other countries, though I’m sorry that I don’t know that) are called astronauts. Space travelers from Russia are called cosmonauts.
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
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Whoosher says
As explained above, they're the same; it's just language differences.
It's interesting that as other countries start sending people into space, local colloquialisms have arisen, eg taikonaut (China), spationaute (France), Afronaut (South Africa – although he was a space tourist).
There's some info on the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Terminolog…
😉
neutron says
astronauts are americans and cosmonauts are russians.
premi shantini says
Astronaut are America
Cosmonaut are Russian
Same thing different translation
Voss says
Astronaut is American, Cosmonaut is Russian
Adam B says
They are the same. The difference is an Astronaut is from the U.S. and a Cosmonaut is from the former Soviet Union. During the start of space travel both countries were sworn enemies during the Cold war era so the Soviet Union called there space travelers Cosmonauts for grudge reasons. Soviets have Cosmonauts and the rest of the world has Astronauts.
lindajune says
The difference is due to politics and language.
Astronaut is the term used in western nations.
Cosmonaut is the term used in Russia.
They are the same profession, same activities, just different nations.