Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures

Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures — page 9
6 INTRODUCTION of missions Astronauts from all nations can still go into space from the Soviet Union and countries such as China have devel oped their own space programs Still people wonder what is next for human space explora tion It is still a rare thing for a person to go to space More people have won lottery jackpots than flown in space 2 Private companies are working on different ideas ranging from space tourism to mining on asteroids People who have made fortunes from technology Microsoft PayPal Amazon and Google are taking the vision that led to their successes and translating it into developing rockets and spaceships The business of creating commercial rockets and ships is comparable to the early day of developing computers and the Internet Space Travelers Where does the word astronaut come from Astronaut is Greek for star voyager or star sailor A Belgian sci ence fiction writer Joseph Henri Honoré Boex first used the term in 1929 but it didn’t become popular until 1961 The Russians prefer to call their space travelers cosmo nauts The first part of that word comes from the Greek word for universe kosmos Yet cosmonaut shares its last syllable with the American term Whether to the stars or the universe these space travelers are sailors