An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Farscape is an Australian-American science fiction television series, produced originally for the Nine Network. It premiered in the US on Sci-Fi Channel's SciFi Friday, 19 March 1999, at 8:00 pm EST as their anchor series. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment. The Jim Henson Company was responsible for the various alien make-up and prosthetics, and two regular characters are entirely Creature Shop creations.
Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale is a science fiction novel by the Soviet writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov, written in 1955–1956 and published in 1957. It was translated into English as Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by George Hanna. The novel predicted some future inventions. The German translation of the novel which was highly censored was serialized in the East German popular science magazine Jugend und Technik in 1958. It was made into a film in 1967, The Andromeda Nebula.
Mona Lisa Overdrive is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following Neuromancer and Count Zero, taking place eight years after the events of the latter. The novel was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1989.
Phase Space is a 2003 science fiction collection by British writer Stephen Baxter, containing twenty-three thematically linked stories, in which the human relationship with the universe is explored: whether humanity is truly alone in the universe, if there are other intelligent species, if these have turned their backs on us, or if expansion itself is destined to fail.
The Shuttle–Mir program was a collaborative 11-mission 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 engage in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.
The Commonwealth Saga is a series of science fiction novels by British science fiction writer Peter F. Hamilton. This saga consists of the novels Pandora's Star (2004) and Judas Unchained (2005). Hamilton has also written several books set in the same literary universe. Misspent Youth (2002) takes place 340 years before the events of Pandora's Star. The Void Trilogy, consisting of The Dreaming Void (2008), The Temporal Void (2009), and The Evolutionary Void (2010), takes place 1,200 years after the events of Judas Unchained; several of the main characters from Judas Unchained and Pandora's Star also appear in the Void trilogy.
Soyuz TMA-11 was a human spaceflight mission using a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to transport personnel to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The mission began at 13:22 UTC on October 10, 2007, when the spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle. It brought to the station two members of the ISS Expedition 16 crew, as well as Sheikh Muszaphar, the first Malaysian in space. TMA-11 remained at the station as an escape craft, and returned safely to Earth on April 19, 2008, after it had been replaced by Soyuz TMA-12. Although the vehicle landed safely, it suffered a partial separation failure which caused a ballistic re-entry that in turn caused it to land 475 km from the intended landing point.
The Lost Cosmonauts or Phantom Cosmonauts are subjects of a conspiracy theory, which alleges that Soviet and Russian space authorities have concealed the deaths of some cosmonauts in outer space. Proponents of the Lost Cosmonauts theory argue that the Soviet Union attempted to launch human spaceflights before Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight, and that cosmonauts onboard died in those attempts. Soviet military pilot Vladimir Ilyushin was alleged to have landed off course and been held by the Chinese government. The Government of the Soviet Union supposedly suppressed this information, to prevent bad publicity during the height of the Cold War.
Marooned is a 1964 science fiction thriller novel by American writer Martin Caidin, about a crewed spacecraft stranded in Earth orbit, oxygen running out, and only an experimental craft available to attempt a rescue. A film based on the novel led Caidin to prepare a revised version of it in 1968. The film was released in 1969, four months after the Apollo 11 mission, with the revised novel sold by book stores a few weeks earlier.
Satoshi Furukawa is a Japanese surgeon and JAXA astronaut. Furukawa was assigned to the International Space Station as a flight engineer on long-duration missions Expedition 28/29 (2011) and Expedition 69/70 (2023-2024).
"Red Star, Winter Orbit" is a short story written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the 1980s. It was first published in Omni in July 1983, and later collected in Burning Chrome, a 1986 anthology of Gibson's early short fiction, and in Sterling's 1986 cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades. The story is set in an alternate future where the Soviet Union controls most of the Earth's resources, especially oil. As a result of this the United States is no longer a dominant economic power on earth and the Soviets have won the space race.
Sputnik Caledonia (2008) is a novel by Andrew Crumey, for which he won the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award, the UK's largest literary prize at the time.
Andrey Ivanovich Borisenko is a Russian cosmonaut. He was selected as a cosmonaut in May 2003, and is a veteran of two long duration missions to the International Space Station.
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Samokutyaev is a Russian politician and former cosmonaut. Samokutyaev served as a Flight Engineer for the International Space Station (ISS) long duration Expedition 27/28 missions. He also served as the Soyuz TMA-21 commander. He most recently served on the Soyuz TMA-14M Expedition 41/42 crew aboard the ISS. He was hired as a cosmonaut in the summer of 2003.
Nebo Zovyot is a 1959 Soviet science fiction adventure film directed by Aleksandr Kozyr and Mikhail Karyukov. It was filmed at Dovzhenko Film Studios in 1959 and premiered September 12, 1959.
The Throne of Saturn is a 1971 science fiction/political novel by Allen Drury that explores the preparations for a near-future crewed mission to the planet Mars.
Mission Mars is a 1967 American science fiction film. It was produced by Everett Rosenthal, with a screenplay by Mike St. Clair from a story by Aubrey Wisberg, and directed by Nick Webster.
Spaceman of Bohemia is a science fiction novel written by Jaroslav Kalfař in 2017.
