Vladimir Kovalyonok
Vladimir Vasiliyevich Kovalyonok (Belarusian: Уладзі́мір Васі́льевіч Кавалёнак; Russian: Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ковалёнок; born March 3, 1942 in Beloye, Minsk Oblast, Belorussian SSR, is a retired Soviet cosmonaut. He entered the Soviet space ...
Vyacheslav Zudov
Vyacheslav Dmitriyevich Zudov is a retired USSR cosmonaut. He was selected as a cosmonaut on 23 October 1965, flew as Commander on Soyuz 23 on 14–16 October 1976 and retired on 14 May 1987.
Vladimir Aksyonov
Aksyonov was selected as cosmonaut on 3 March 1973. He was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union on two occasions. He retired on 17 October 1988. Flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz 22 and Soyuz T-2.
Aleksei Gubarev
Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (Russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Гу́барев; 29 March 1931 – 21 February 2015) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two space flights: Soyuz 17 and Soyuz 28.
Lev Dyomin
Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (Russian: Лев Степанович Дёмин; January 11, 1926, in Moscow – December 18, 1998, in Zvyozdny Gorodok) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This spaceflight was intended to dock with the space ...
Gennadi Sarafanov
Gennadi Vasiliyevich Sarafanov ( b. January 1, 1942 in Sinenkiye, Saratov Oblast, Russia – d. September 29, 2005, Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This mission was intended to dock with the space ...
Valentin Lebedev
Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev (Russian: Валентин Витальевич Лебедев; born April 14, 1942 in Moscow) was a Soviet cosmonaut who made two flights into space. His stay aboard the Space Station Salyut 7 with Anatoly Berezovoy in 1982, which lasted 211 ...
Pyotr Klimuk
Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk (Belarusian: Пётр Ільіч Кліму́к; Russian: Пётр Ильич Климу́к; born 10 July 1942) is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space. Klimuk attended the ...
Edward Gibson
Edward George Gibson is a former NASA astronaut, pilot, engineer, and physicist. Before becoming a NASA astronaut, Gibson graduated from the University of Rochester and the California Institute of Technology. He became a research assistant in ...
What is the difference between a cosmonaut and an astronaut?
Cosmonaut and astronaut are synonyms, that is, theoretically we can use them interchangeably, but traditionally we call people launched into space by the Americans astronauts and by the Russians cosmonauts, regardless of what nationalities they were. That is, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, Italians, French and Germans flying with Americans are astronauts. In contrast, General Hermaszewski, the only (so far) Pole in Space, is called a cosmonaut because he flew as part of the Soviet space program.
