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0 pointskobeya9y ago0 comments

It has always bothered me that we insist on calling our space farers "astronauts" when they don't go anywhere near the Sun or stars, vs the entirely accurate "cosmonaut".

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5 comments · 3 top-level

cgriswald9y ago· 2 in thread

Given the number and scope of misnomers in astronomy, astronaut seems downright sensical. Those dark patches on the moon? They're bone dry, but we call them seas. Those beautiful planetary nebulae? They're the tombs of dead stars; any planets there are coincidental. Those small, mountain sized rocks floating in space? We say call them starlike.

If it helps, I think of an astronaut as someone who sails among the stars, rather than to the stars. In that sense, it's just as accurate as cosmonaut. But, given that every living thing on Earth can rightfully be called an astronaut or cosmonaut, neither term is very precise. It is more precise to identify a person as human than to identify him as a cosmonaut, since cosmonaut can also refer to monkeys, rabbits, dogs, insects... :)

kobeyaOP9y ago

Well it's the political origin of the term that is bothersome. The Russians came up with the perfectly sensible and accurate term 'cosmonaut' and the USA refused to use it.

cgriswald9y ago

I'm really curious if it's usage was political. I did find this forum post[0], but it didn't really shed any light on the question. It does, however, suggest that the term was chosen in ignorance of it already existing in fiction for (at least) decades by the time the space race had started. So, if the forum post is to be believed (I couldn't find the cited first source), a defense suggesting it was already in the lexicon couldn't be supported since the selectors of the term themselves admit their ignorance of the term previously being used.

Cosmonaut, I believe, more literally translates to "spacenaut", which sounds terrible, because of the Russian word for space, which, like our cosmos, is derived from the word kosmos. The English term cosmonaut is not through the greek kosmos and nautis, but just an Anglicization of the Russian word.

[0] - http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum34/HTML/000108.html

Rooster619y ago

Well, the same is true of astronomy. One could spend their entire life looking through a telescope at only planets, and still be considered an astronomer.

twic9y ago

Whereas in British English, they're just "spacemen"!

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