Alan Bean
Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and naval aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut ...
Viktor Gorbatko
Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko (Russian: Ви́ктор Васи́льевич Горба́тко; December 3, 1934 – May 17, 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7, Soyuz 24, and Soyuz 37 missions.
Vladislav Volkov
Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov (Russian: Владисла́в Никола́евич Во́лков; November 23, 1935 – June 30, 1971) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 11 missions. The second mission terminated fatally. Volkov, on his second space ...
Valery Kubasov
Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 19 (the Apollo–Soyuz mission), and commanded Soyuz 36 in the Intercosmos programme. On 21 July 1975, the Soyuz 7K-TM module used for ASTP ...
Aleksei Yeliseyev
Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev (Russian: Алексей Станиславович Елисеев; born July 13, 1934) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 5, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10. Aleksei's ...
Boris Volynov
Boris Valentinovich Volynov (Russian: Бори́с Валенти́нович Волы́нов; born 18 December 1934) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21. He was the first Jewish cosmonaut to enter space, ...
Vladimir Shatalov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov (Russian: Владимир Александрович Шаталов; born December 8, 1927) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10. Shatalov was born in Petropavlovsk. ...
William Anders
William Alison "Bill" Anders was a United States Air Force Major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. He was one of the first three persons to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon in ...
Michael Collins
Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930) (Major General, USAF, Ret.) was an American former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew into space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini ...
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.
