Talk:List of astronauts by name

message: Why is Yang Liwei listed as the "first Chinese-launched astronaut" and not simply as "the first Chinese astronaut"? Was someone from China launched by the Russians or someone from Taiwan launched by the US? Rmhermen 13:15, Oct 15, 2003 (UTC)
:He is also the first astronaut of chinese nationality. But Taylor Gun-Jin Wang (born 1940 in Shanghai) was the first chinese, but he became US citizen in 1975, well before his flight. And Shannon Lucid was also born in Shanghai... andy 13:26, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Chinese astronaut

message: At 62 years old, will Mike Melvill, the pilot of SpaceshipOne on it's maiden space flight on June 21st, be the second oldest astronaut behind John Glenn? - Alan Anderton
:Story Musgrave (the oldest fellow I thought of) was 61 for his last flight.  Who held the honor before John Glenn? -- ke4roh 20:19, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second oldest Astronaut? 

message: Lots of X-15 pilots missing from here. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 05:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: this list should include mention of the pilots who are recognized by the united states as being "astronauts". perhaps as a separate section, but they need to be listed. Mlm42 10:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  X-15 pilots? 

message: Franklin Chang-Diaz is listed as "first Hispanic astronaut". He first flew in space in 1986. Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez flew in space in 1980, launched by the Soviet Union for Cuba. It appears that Tamayo Méndez was the first hispanic in space. Reubenbarton 21:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Hispanic astronaut 

message: *Both Joseph A. Walker and Virgil Grissom are listed as the first person in space twice. Which is it? Philip Stevens 07:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First person in space twice 

message: William Anders is listed as the first Asian-born person in space, but his flight was in 1968. In 1961 Gherman Titov went to space (the second person to do so). He was born in the Altai Region of the USSR, in Asia. --82.142.124.93 12:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed attribution on Anders' entry. --82.142.124.93 12:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Asian-born person in space 

message: Should astronauts who have died have thier names marked with a cross (†) symbol? Seems a bit presumptuous to me when clearly several of those who fall into the category were NOT christians. I think it should be replaced with a more religiously inconsequential/unrelated symbol like an asterisk. --Deglr6328 08:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astronauts who have died indication 

message: Roger B. Chaffee, who haven't been in space, is now on the list. Challenger's last pilot; Michael J. Smith should therefore be on the list too.
Jake Garn and Bill Nelson flew of political reasons, so did the Intercosmos cosmonauts. They should be removed too. Necessary Evil 21:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Garn and Nelson aren't on this list any more, they have been moved to the List of space travelers by name. Smith should be added along with anyone who began a training program to be a professional astronaut. Regarding Intercosmos, did the participants consider themselves has having chosen space travel as a career? Did any of them fly in space more than once? Rillian 22:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Another consideration - Helen Sharman - was she a professional astronaut? Rillian 22:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Intercosmos cosmonauts were chosen as representatives of Soviet puppet regimes, as an act of "solidarity". None of them flew again. Helen Sharman won a competition for one space flight. I think astronauts should have been a member of an astronaut corps to be on the list. Necessary Evil 22:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about...

message: Helen Sharman is not listed here (yet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Sharman —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.106.32.127 (talk) 20:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Was she a member of an astronaut corps? Else look at List of space travelers by name. Necessary Evil 20:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: And Yuri Gagarin was? JamesCollins (talk) 20:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helen Sharman 

message: Is the fact that a few space travellers may not have been professional astronauts sufficient reason to maintain both List of astronauts by name and List of space travelers by name? Either the "tourists" could be flagged in the one list with some graphical device, or, perhaps even better, a separate list of non-professionals could be compiled. It seems to me like an awful lot of unnecessary duplication the way it is right now... Matt 20:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree. Actually, the reverse is also true. There are many astronauts (e.g. Chaffee and Acaba) who have never flown in space. This page is a list of anyone trained as a professional astronaut, regardless of whether they made it into space. The other list is for anyone who has flown in space, regardless of whether they were a professional astronaut. There is value in having both lists. Rillian 20:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagreement noted, but just to say that in my comment above I forgot to mention that the people who have actually flown need differentiating too. Thus, one list with some icons representing "professional (flown)", "professional (not flown)" and "non-professional". Matt 20:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

text: support it's an old proposal, but I would support a merger, if no improvement is made to minimize confusion caused to casual readers. Penyulap talk 04:40, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal 

message: Come on, do we really need those little Venus signs to denote that the astronaut in question was female? May as well have Mars ones too. Plus the ethnicity of all of them, as that seems to be important as well. But apparently only if they're not white. 130.56.71.50 (talk) 05:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Venus signs - really? 

message: This article needs tougher guidelines on who is to be counted as an 'astronaut', and those guidelines need to be enforced consistently -- in going through the list, I'm seeing several people who were only "scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists" at the time of their spaceflight.  Also very unclear is the status of "commercial astronauts" -- the term seems to be a creation of the companies involved, and need not imply any degree of training comparable to that given by NASA or Roskosmos or the ESA or JAXA.  Rather, the status is contingent upon flights above a certain altitude, and so corresponds to WP's usage of the term "space traveler".  Payload specialists and "spaceflight participants" are other gray areas.  RandomCritic (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guidelines 

message: I am wondering whether there is any reason why there are pictures of some but not other astronauts. my concern is that they are making the ones with pictures seem more important  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moneya (talk • contribs) 21:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: *support WP:NPOV WP:AL Due to the large number of individuals listed on this page, not all can be pictured and still allow the page to load quickly, it would make the page too long. Additional criteria is required for the inclusion of photos of an individual. I will support First Man, First Woman and First on Moon, would anyone care to support that ? Penyulap talk 04:20, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Oppose. As with any article, editors should use good judgement and include pictures that improve the article and illustrate key concepts described in the article. We don't need a fixed policy, just continue using good editorial judgement and be Bold. Rillian (talk) 12:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Pictures?

message: The name of the article itself should be changed to reflect that this is a list of professional astronauts rather than listing it in the first paragraph. Because this article is a list, people may arrive at the page and skip straight to finding the name of an individual and miss the qualification which is made in the lead. The distinction is not made in conversational usage, nor is it a widespread understanding. Penyulap talk 04:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The list criteria matches the definition of astronaut -  a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Who are these "non-professional astronauts" that people may be confused if they are not included on this list of astronauts? Rillian (talk) 12:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title of article should be changed. (improved) 

message: 208.107.74.4 removed the female markings because he or she felt that "No need for a distinction of female astronauts. Either have both male and female marked or none at all." This is not a minor edit, and should be discussed here first. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distinction of female astronauts 

message: Bjarni Tryggvason was born in Iceland so shouldn't the Icelandic flag be besides his name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.190.119.71 (talk) 18:29, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Well Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins (astronaut) was born in Rome, Italy. But he doesn't have an Italian flag besides his name. Bjarni Tryggvason sounds Icelandic, and AFAIK he is a Canadian of Icelandic descent. He flew in space as a Canadian and did not fly the Icelandic flag e.g. see :File:Bjarni Tryggvason.jpg. If he was/still is a citizen of Iceland your Icelandic flag next to Maple Leaf is just fine! --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 00:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bjarni Tryggvason 

message: I understand that this subject has already been addressed, but I am resurrecting this in a new thread. I entirely agree with 130.56.71.50, who stated that it is unfair that only females have gender denoted here. While knowing that yes, the majority of astronauts are male, that is true of a lot of professions. If we had a list of doctors on Wikipedia (which there probably is), would we exclusively indicate females there? How about police officers? Even if there would be, this is just really sexist. There's another list of astronauts (well, space travelers, but still) almost identical to this one, and the male symbols are indicated there, so why shouldn't they be here, if they can't be removed entirely? I don't really think they should be there at all, because it implies that gender matters when it comes to performance under extreme conditions, which, of course, IT DOES NOT. (I'm probably biased here, but that is a moot point.) But if there just has to be the gender indication there, they should definitely be used for both sexes. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 01:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Gender bias

message: I take issue with the bolding of certain names. It has been explained as an indication of who set foot on the Moon, but I find it discriminatory: the end result is a list emphasizing Americans, downplaying the pioneering contribution of other, non-American astronauts, like Yuri Gagarin, for instance. Moon-landing is a cherry-picked criterion for emphasis, and I suggest the removal of any merit-based emphasis on this list. The readers can find all the details of an astronaut's career in their pages. In my view, being the first person in space beats walking on the Moon. Heck, even being the first dog in space does. --Edwin Pixley (talk) 10:13, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emphasis