An astronaut-politician is a person who has entered politics after traveling to space as an astronaut. Even with the increasing number of individuals who have flown in space, astronauts still maintain a wide degree of public recognition, and those interested in pursuing a career in politics have been able to take advantage of their renown to enter politics at higher levels of elected office.
Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes is the first South American and Lusophone to go into space as part of the Missão Centenário. He participated in the Russian Soyuz TMA-8 mission to the International Space Station in 2006. Under Jair Bolsonaro's Presidency, Pontes was announced as Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation. [1] In the 2022 São Paulo state elections Marcos Pontes was elected for the Brazilian Senate with 10.7 million votes (49.68%). [2]
Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space, when he flew in 1984 on the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-41-G as a payload specialist. After two other Shuttle flights, Garneau entered politics and won a seat to the Parliament of Canada in 2008. [3] Garneau was appointed as Minister of Transport by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on November 4, 2015.
Canadian astronaut Julie Payette flew on STS-96 in 1999 and STS-127 in 2009 as a mission specialist. In 2017 she became the 29th Governor General of Canada, the viceregal representative of the King in Canada and a nonpartisan position within Canadian governance.
Three individuals have made the journey to space and were later elected to become a Member of the European Parliament. Cosmonaut Vladimír Remek, who flew into space on Soyuz 28 in 1978 from Czechoslovakia as the first non-American or non-Soviet in space, was elected as an MEP in 2004 from the Czech Republic as an independent candidate for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, and was re-elected in 2009, with Deutsche Welle describing how "his huge communist-era fame contributed to his success at the ballot box". Italian astronaut Franco Malerba flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-46 on Atlantis and became the first Italian to travel to space in 1992, and was elected in June 1994 to the European Parliament, where he sits with the European People's Party. Also another Italian astronaut, Umberto Guidoni, flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-75 on Columbia and became the first European to visit the International Space Station when he was part of STS-100 aboard Endeavour in 2001, and was elected in June 2004 to the European Parliament, where he sits with the European United Left–Nordic Green Left. [4]
Claudie Haigneré, a French spationaute, has been junior minister for Research and New Technologies, and junior minister for European Affairs, in a government led by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, but has never held elected office.
Astronaut and veteran of two space missions Pedro Duque has been named Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain in May 2018. [5] He earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) in 1986.
Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa was the first Mongolian in space, flying on the Soyuz 39 mission in 1981. He served as the Minister of Defense of Mongolia from 2000 until 2004. [6]
In Russia, cosmonaut Yuri Baturin, described by Space.com in 2000 as "Russia's only cosmonaut / politician", became a senior aide to President Boris Yeltsin and served as one of that nation's leading space policy advisors. [7]
All four female Russian cosmonauts have gone on to serve in the State Duma. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, entered politics in the days of the Soviet Union, serving in parliament and as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. [8] Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman in space, was elected to the State Duma in 1996 and currently serves as Deputy Chair of the Committee on Defense, in addition to being a member of the Commission on Safety, Defense, and the Fight Against Crime in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia. [9] Yelena Kondakova served in the Duma as a member of Fatherland – All Russia and later United Russia. She left United Russia in 2011 as a result of her dissatisfaction with results of internal party elections. [10] Most recently, Yelena Serova, the first female Russian cosmonaut to visit the International Space Station, was elected to serve in the Duma in 2016. [11]
In the United States, some major political leaders have attempted to draw astronauts into the political sphere. [12]
John Glenn, one of the Mercury Seven selected in 1959 by NASA who became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth when he flew the Mercury-Atlas 6 named Friendship 7 for three Earth orbits on February 20, 1962, was the first astronaut elected to Congress when he won a Senate seat in 1974. He is the longest-serving American astronaut-politician to date, serving 25 years in the Senate.
Glenn left the human spaceflight program in 1964 and announced that he would challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Stephen M. Young in the Democratic primary at the end of Young's first term in office. Criticism of "astronaut turned politician" Glenn immediately followed his announcement, with Republicans and Young supporters disagreeing with the "undesirable precedent in astronauts' capitalizing on their fame to enter political roles", and some grumbling that Glenn did not follow the standard "step-by-step progression up the political ladder" by "aspiring immediately for the Senate". [13]
Many in Congress believed that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had promoted Glenn's electoral bid to increase Democrats' chances in Ohio in the 1964 United States presidential election. Kennedy stated that he had had "a number of conversations with John Glenn over his future". At the same time, the Democratic Party of Oklahoma reportedly discussed fellow Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper as a candidate for the Senate. [13] In an editorial shortly after the announcement, The Blade stated that Glenn "presumes too much on his popularity as a spaceman". [14] A slip and fall in a bathtub in March 1964 ultimately led to Glenn's withdrawal from the race. [15] Glenn ran again in 1970, losing the Ohio Senate primary to Howard Metzenbaum. In 1974, Glenn won election to the Senate in a special election to fill the seat of William B. Saxbe. [16] In 1984, Glenn sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. He withdrew from the race in March 1984, after winning only two delegates and finishing in sixth place. [17] Glenn returned to space on October 29, 1998, aboard Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95) while still a sitting Senator. The next year he retired from Congress.
Two Apollo astronauts were elected to the United States Congress. Astronaut turned Senator, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, [18] whose participation on the Apollo 17 mission made him the only geologist to walk on the Moon, resigned from NASA in August 1975 and shortly thereafter ran as a Republican, winning the United States Senate in New Mexico seat in 1976 over two-term Democratic incumbent, Joseph Montoya by a margin of 57% to 42%, despite being described by The New York Times as a "political neophyte". [19] Jack Swigert, who had flown on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, was elected in November 1982 to the United States House of Representatives representing Colorado, based on a plan he developed that "evolved from his training as an astronaut and the success of the Apollo exploration of the Moon", but died before taking office. [20] [12] Jack Lousma lost to incumbent Carl Levin in the 1984 United States Senate election in Michigan. [21] Apollo 15 crew member Alfred Worden ran for Congress in 1982 to represent Florida's 12th congressional district, but lost the Republican primary to Tom Lewis. [22]
NASA's Shuttle program has also produced several politicians. In 1985, Senator Jake Garn went into space aboard the STS-51-D flight as a payload specialist and in 1986 Rep. Bill Nelson of Florida became the second sitting member of Congress to travel into space aboard Space Shuttle Columbia's STS-61-C mission, also as a payload specialist. In 2012, shuttle astronaut José M. Hernández ran for Congress in California's 10th District, he won the Democratic nomination, but lost to incumbent Jeff Denham. [23]
On February 12, 2019, four-time shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly announced that he was running in the 2020 Senate special election in Arizona to fill the seat left open by the death of John McCain in 2018. [24] In the Democratic primary, he faced only nominal opposition, winning the nomination with 99.93% of the vote. Kelly faced off against incumbent Senator Martha McSally (appointed by Governor Doug Ducey) on Election Day, winning with a margin of about 2 points. [25] He was sworn in on December 2, 2020. [26] Kelly was reelected in the 2022 Senate election, securing a full six-year term.
In 2024, after President Joe Biden declined to seek re-election, there was heavy speculation that presumptive-nominee Kamala Harris was considering Kelly as her running mate. [27]
John Herschel Glenn Jr. was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a U.S. Senator from Ohio; in 1998, he flew into space again at the age of 77.
Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau is a retired Canadian Member of Parliament, retired Royal Canadian Navy officer and former astronaut who served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Garneau was the minister of foreign affairs from January to October 2021 and minister of transport from November 2015 to January 2021. He was an MP in Westmount, Montreal for 15 years.
Robert Brent "Bob" Thirsk, is a Canadian retired engineer and physician, and a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut. He holds the Canadian record for the most time spent in space. He became an officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in 2013 and was named to the Order of British Columbia (OBC) in 2012.
STS-41-G was the 13th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the sixth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. Challenger launched on October 5, 1984, and conducted the second shuttle landing at Kennedy Space Center on October 13, 1984. It was the first shuttle mission to carry a crew of seven, including the first crew with two women, the first American Extravehicular activity (EVA) involving a woman (Sullivan), the first Australian-born person to journey into space as well as the first astronaut with a beard and the first Canadian astronaut.
Yelena Vladimirovna Kondakova is the third Soviet or Russian female cosmonaut to travel to space and the first woman to make a long-duration spaceflight. Her first trip into space was on Soyuz TM-20 on 4 October 1994. She returned to Earth on 22 March 1995, after a five-month stay at the Mir space station. Kondakova's second flight was as a mission specialist on the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis during mission STS-84 in May 1997. She was the last Russian woman in space until her successor cosmonaut Elena Serova flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on 25 September 2014.
STS-95 was a Space Shuttle mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 29 October 1998, using the orbiter Discovery. It was the 25th flight of Discovery and the 92nd mission flown since the start of the Space Shuttle program in April 1981. It was a highly publicized mission due to former Project Mercury astronaut and United States Senator John H. Glenn Jr.'s return to space for his second space flight. At age 77, Glenn became the oldest person to go into space, a record that remained unbroken for 23 years until 82-year-old Wally Funk flew on a suborbital flight on Blue Origin NS-16, launching on 20 July 2021, which in turn was broken by William Shatner at age 90 on 13 October 2021 and then by Ed Dwight on May 19 2024. Glenn, however, remains the oldest person to reach Earth orbit. This mission is also noted for inaugurating ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the U.S., with live coast-to-coast coverage of the launch. In another first, Pedro Duque became the first Spaniard in space.
Mark Edward Kelly is an American politician, retired astronaut, and United States Navy captain. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the junior U.S. senator from Arizona since 2020. In 2022, he won reelection to a full term.
Scott Joseph Kelly is an American engineer, retired astronaut, and naval aviator. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on Expeditions 26, 44, 45, and 46.
Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev is a Russian mechanical engineer and former cosmonaut and head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Charles Joseph Precourt is a retired NASA astronaut. His career in flight began at an early age, and spans his entire lifetime. He served in the US Air Force, piloted numerous jet aircraft, and piloted and commanded the Space Shuttle. Notably, he piloted or commanded several missions which involved docking with the Russian Mir space station and was heavily involved in Russian/US Space relations as well as the International Space Station collaboration. He also served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1998 to 2002. He retired from the USAF with the rank of colonel.
The Shuttle–Mir program was a collaborative space program between Russia and the United States that involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station Mir, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to allow American astronauts to engage in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.
Marcos Cesar Pontes is a Brazilian Air Force pilot, engineer, AEB astronaut, politician and author. He became the first South American and the first Lusophone to go into space when he docked onto the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-8 on 30 March 2006. He is the only Brazilian to have completed the NASA astronaut training program, although he switched to training in Russia after NASA's Space Shuttle program encountered problems. After Jair Bolsonaro's election as President of Brazil in 2018, Pontes was officially nominated to be Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, a post which he accepted days later and assumed when Bolsonaro's government began. He left the post on 31 March 2022 and in the same year was elected federal senator for his state, São Paulo.
Leonid Kostyantynovych Kadeniuk was the first astronaut of independent Ukraine to fly into outer space.
A payload specialist (PS) was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as payload specialists included individuals selected by the research community, a company or consortium flying a commercial payload aboard the spacecraft, and non-NASA astronauts designated by international partners.
Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr. is a United States Air Force officer and a former NASA astronaut. He has been on two spaceflights; the first was the Space Shuttle mission STS-118 to the International Space Station, in August 2007. Drew's second spaceflight took place in March 2011 on STS-133, another mission to the International Space Station. STS-133 was Space Shuttle Discovery's final mission. Drew took part in two spacewalks while docked to the station. Drew was the final African-American to fly on board a Space Shuttle, as the final two Space Shuttle missions, STS-134 and STS-135, had no African-American crew members.
Astronauts hold a variety of ranks and positions. Each of these roles carries responsibilities that are essential to the operation of a spacecraft. A spacecraft's cockpit, filled with sophisticated equipment, requires skills differing from those used to manage the scientific equipment on board, and so on.
Astronauts and other spaceflight participants have observed their religions while in space; sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. Religious adherence in outer space poses unique challenges and opportunities for practitioners. Space travelers have reported profound changes in the way they view their faith related to the overview effect, while some secular groups have criticized the use of government spacecraft for religious activities by astronauts.
Women have flown and worked in outer space since almost the beginning of human spaceflight. A considerable number of women from a range of countries have worked in space, though overall women are still significantly less often chosen to go to space than men, and by June, 2020 constitute only 12% of all astronauts who have been to space. Yet, the proportion of women among space travelers is increasing substantially over time. The first woman to fly in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule on June 16–19, 1963. Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker, rather than a pilot like the male cosmonauts flying at the time, chosen for propaganda value, her devotion to the Communist Party, and her years of experience in sport parachuting, which she used on landing after ejecting from her capsule. Women were not qualified as space pilots and workers co-equal to their male counterparts until 1982. By October 2021, most of the 70 women who have been to space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Other countries have flown one, two or three women in human spaceflight programs. Additionally one woman of dual Iranian-US citizenship has participated as a tourist on a US spaceflight.
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