Space...

[Olivier]

I just wonder which word you prefer, as the European Union has decided to "boost" its schedule to launch a robot on Planet Mars.

[Fons]

I always say Astronate, I think most people do that.

[BogPoet]

First of all, the meaning of the relevant terms:

"Astro" (celestial body, ie, planets, stars, comets, etc.) + "Naut" (sailor at its origin - latin, i think, but i'm not sure - , but in modern times, it has come to mean "the one who explores").
Therefore, astronauts are people who explore the planets and other celestial bodies (only the moon so far, but we never know )

"Cosmo" + "naut" -> someone who explores the cosmos

"Space" + "naut" -> it's not really very common to mix an erudit prefix with modern words, but I guess it means the same as cosmonaut...

Internaut -> me!

If we talk about people, the only real Astronauts that ever were, were the men who stepped on the moon (all others - including people at the ISS, are Cosmonauts). Of course, the robot would be an Astronaut -> since it would be exploring an "Astro".

[emmem]

I think they all are just imitators of aliens. So they should be called imitaliens.

[Fireball]

The russians use cosmonaut and the europians use austronaut

[micro]

"Astro" (celestial body, ie, planets, stars, comets, etc.) + "Naut" (sailor at its origin - latin, i think, but i'm not sure - , but in modern times, it has come to mean "the one who explores").
Therefore, astronauts are people who explore the planets and other celestial bodies (only the moon so far, but we never know )

I would tend to say that the latin word "astrum" is just star (asterisk), and astronomy being the science of the stars. Therefore the word "astronaut" would be nonsense because astronauts do not sail to the stars and probably will never do so, at least not in the near future. But maybe the meaning of "astro" has somehow been extended to planets and moons.

[BogPoet]

"Astro" (celestial body, ie, planets, stars, comets, etc.) + "Naut" (sailor at its origin - latin, i think, but i'm not sure - , but in modern times, it has come to mean "the one who explores").
Therefore, astronauts are people who explore the planets and other celestial bodies (only the moon so far, but we never know )

I would tend to say that the latin word "astrum" is just star (asterisk), and astronomy being the science of the stars. Therefore the word "astronaut" would be nonsense because astronauts do not sail to the stars and probably will never do so, at least not in the near future. But maybe the meaning of "astro" has somehow been extended to planets and moons.

Hmm... It's possible that I have been influenced by my native Portuguese. In Portuguese, the word "Astro" means any celestial body - stars, planets, comets, whatever. So, in Portuguese, "Earth is an 'Astro', Sun is an 'Astro' and the Halley Comet is an 'Astro'". Actually, when writing this post, I found out there's no equivalent English word. 'Astro' in pt also means 'star', but in a different context, for example in the phrase, 'Julia Roberts is a movie star' (A Julia Roberts é um astro do cinema).
And if you come to think of it, astronomy doesn't deal only with stars

[Olivier]

The russians use cosmonaut and the europians use austronaut

The French say Spationautes...

[Antti]

The russians use cosmonaut and the europians use austronaut

The French say Spationautes...

Do you (or they) use it for both russian and american, afaik there aren't many French space-travellers. And aren't astronauts american?

PS Where is taikonaut (chinese space explorer)? the first taikonauts should take off in the near future

[wouter]

I like the name Cosmonaute or Kosmonaut best. The russians have a great space industrie and in the time I was interested in it most of the news regarding space was about the Mir and its Cosmonautes.

[Olivier]

The russians use cosmonaut and the europians use austronaut

The French say Spationautes...

Do you (or they) use it for both russian and american, afaik there aren't many French space-travellers. And aren't astronauts american?

PS Where is taikonaut (chinese space explorer)? the first taikonauts should take off in the near future

Personnaly, I prefer Cosmonaute, which sounds a bit old fashioned. It reminds of the times with Youri Gagarine...

[micro]

"Astro" (celestial body, ie, planets, stars, comets, etc.) + "Naut" (sailor at its origin - latin, i think, but i'm not sure - , but in modern times, it has come to mean "the one who explores").
Therefore, astronauts are people who explore the planets and other celestial bodies (only the moon so far, but we never know )

I would tend to say that the latin word "astrum" is just star (asterisk), and astronomy being the science of the stars. Therefore the word "astronaut" would be nonsense because astronauts do not sail to the stars and probably will never do so, at least not in the near future. But maybe the meaning of "astro" has somehow been extended to planets and moons.

Hmm... It's possible that I have been influenced by my native Portuguese. In Portuguese, the word "Astro" means any celestial body - stars, planets, comets, whatever. So, in Portuguese, "Earth is an 'Astro', Sun is an 'Astro' and the Halley Comet is an 'Astro'". Actually, when writing this post, I found out there's no equivalent English word. 'Astro' in pt also means 'star', but in a different context, for example in the phrase, 'Julia Roberts is a movie star' (A Julia Roberts é um astro do cinema).
And if you come to think of it, astronomy doesn't deal only with stars

So NASA or whoever created the word "astronaut" has probably taken into account the wider range of meanings "astro" has, like in the Portuguese language!

[avij]

Somewhat related to this poll, there's some kind of a space shooting game on SubTV (Finnish cable TV channel) where TV viewers can send an SMS with their mobile phone to control the game. The players can register themselves as astronauts or cosmonauts, and there are U.S. and Russian flags next to those team names, respectively.

I myself prefer the word astronaut.

[Dakkus]

What about "Emptynaut"? They're exploring the emptiness, anyway :)

[Tigas]

Astronaut!