Template talk:Infobox astronaut

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Error with template

There is a serious factual error in the template. The individual's nationality is used to determine whether they are an astronaut, cosmonaut, etc. Unfortunatly, it isn't that simple. For example an American flying on Soyuz is technically a cosmonaut, and a Russian flying on the Shuttle is technically an astronaut. Can somebody sort this out. Thanks --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | Chess | E-mail} 12:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• The nationality field doesn't determine the title of the individual. Philip Stevens 13:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• I have had another look, and, whilst I can see now that I was wrong, I can also see that it is a very confusing system, so I recomend changing it to a single field into which the type of space traveller they are is inserted manually. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | Chess | E-mail} 21:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• There seems to have been no objection, so I have done this. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 16:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Changes and how to update

The type of space traveller is now manually entered, rather than using the awkward and misleading automated system.

To update it, please refer to this table

Previous	Replacement	Description
USSR = USSR	type = Cosmonaut	Anyone who has flown on a Russian/Soviet spacecraft
USA = USA	type = Astronaut	Anyone who has flown on an American spacecraft
PRC = PRC	type = Taikonaut	Anyone who has flown on a Chinese spacecraft
EUR = EUR	type = Spationaut	Any Frenchman who has gone into space
AFR = AFR	type = Afronaut	Any ?South?-African who has gone into space

Note: The infoboxes as they are now are not always correct, - Americans who have flown on Soyuz are Cosmonauts, Russians who have flown on the Shuttle are Astronauts, Frenchmen, ?South?-Africans, and Malasians, are always Spationauts, Afronauts, and Angaskawen, regardless of what they have flown on. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 20:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

What if they went up in a Soyuz but come back on the Space Shuttle? Gdavidp1

Why don't we just use English and call them all astronauts instead of being saddled with a Cold War relic usage (and a number of unused-in-actual-English-language-practice terms). Rmhermen 00:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Because they are not always astronauts. A person who has flown on a Russian spacecraft is as much a Cosmonaut as someone who has flown on a Soviet flight. I am Strongly opposed to the unnecessary Americanisation of Wikipedia, and I feel that it is important that we respect their national identities. This change was proposed, and after no objections were made, it was carried out. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 20:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this still really misleading though? The first three in the table above are about what type of vehicle one has flown in, whereas the last two are about the nationality of the flyer. What, then, do we do about Mark Shuttleworth? He's a South African/British dual-national who flew on a Soyuz, so is he a Cosmonaut or an Afronaut? Confused! -- Hux 15:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The space agencies cannot sort this out themselves. I've always assumed that the nationality overrides the spacecraft, on the grounds that France, South Africa, Malasia, etc do not have their own manned space programmes. Also, I believe Shuttleworth refers to himself as an Afronaut, so I would use this. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 19:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

All this seems quite confusing and unnecessarily complicated. Why would matter anyway what nation the space traveller comes from, or which country spacecraft is used? I can't understand why there isn't a unified term for a space traveller yet, even worse, new names are popping up (like "afronaut"). Even the old names have some peculiarities nobody cares for: "Cosmonaut" means someone who flies to cosmos, i.e. the outer space. So every space traveller satisfies this. "Astronaut" means someone who flies to, or among stars - so far we have none who satisfies this! Not even if we use the stretched definition of stars to include the planets. :arny (talk) 23:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Update?

Why does this template say it needs updating? This is appears on hundreds of articles and the supposed problem is nowhere explained? Is this a deprecated template? What is the new one? Rmhermen 00:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Replace | USA=USA with | type =Astronaut or Cosmonaut - Gdavidp1 02:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Astronaut/Cosmonaut

What is the current thinking for the case where a person has flown both on USA and USSR/Russion spaceflights (for example Sergei Krikalev). My personal feeling is that he is a Cosmonaut but I'd be hard pressed to defend that given that people of other nationalities that have flown on Soviet mission are called Cosmonauts (i.e. Franz Viehböck) irrespective of their actual nationality. Any suggestions on how to make this codify this (or are we just going to go with what sounds right)? ThreeBlindMice 20:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I suppose we could use both. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 20:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Example is Kenneth D. Bowersox. I'm adding both to update, but please re-update if the thinking changes on this. (An alternative would be that an American who flew on both USA and Russian missions would be considered an Astronaut, while a Russian who flew on both types of missions would be a Cosmonaut). FelineAvenger 23:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Another weird case for current guidelines: Edward Fincke. An American who has only flown on Soyuz and the ISS, but not the Shuttle. Under current guidelines, he'd only be a cosmonaut. I put him as both Astronaut and Cosmonaut. FelineAvenger 04:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Continuing a discussion from Talk:Anousheh Ansari, I'm going to bring some sources to bear on this issue and potential problems the template may have.

1. The word "astronaut" is a generic term for a person who travels in space. It may be freely translated as "cosmonaut", "spationaut", "taikonaut", and so forth. Different conventions apply for different home countries. Russians retain the name "cosmonaut", while Europeans traveling through ESA are translated to "astronauts". The term "astronaut" is used in the Outer Space Treaty to refer to all space travelers (although it presumed that all would be official representatives of their nations).
2. The word "Astronaut" and "Cosmonaut" etc. are also titles referring to members of their nation's "Astronaut/* Corps".
3. From NASA usage, an astronaut or cosmonaut does not change their title by flying on another nation's craft. An astronaut launching to ISS on a Soyuz is still an astronaut. References to "cosmonaut training" (and vice versa) indicate that it's considered a skill rather than a title.
4. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale defines astronautical flight as anything exceeding the Karman line or 100km altitude. The FAI has also (post-Tito) offered a definition of Astronaut in its Sporting Code as both "crew members and to scientific personnel aboard the spacecraft playing an active part in the mission during the flight." The 100km line is respected by Russia, who terms members of its corps "test-cosmonaut" until they fly. Other agencies do not appear to follow this and simply certify people based on training.
5. NASA and Russia both have launched individuals who were not members of the astronaut/* corps: payload specialists and research cosmonauts. Other "guests" have been given training and official designation as astronauts/* but are still considered to have earned the title. Jean-Loup Chrétien, for example, was a cosmonaut for Russia and an astronaut for the US, while remaining a French spationaute.
6. NASA and Russia agreed in 2002 not to call space tourists astronauts or cosmonauts, but space flight participants. (In a prior ruling, NASA had termed Dennis Tito a "nonprofessional cosmonaut".)

I believe we can settle the questions raised earlier in this section regarding Reiter and Lopez-Alegria. They're both astronauts by convention of their agencies.

But I think we may need to define acceptable values for the field "type" and "rank". Right now space tourists are inconsistently marked: three have "cosmonaut" in the type field, one has nothing. If "type" means "title", this is incorrect. Per the [[WP:NC(CN}|common-name rule]] ... I'm not sure. Most Western media have adopted the term "space tourist" over any other term. Potential other uses for the field could be "private", "space tourist", or "space flight participant". (If the third, what do we put in rank? That's the one that wikilinks.) --Dhartung | Talk 06:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Excellent post, Dhartung. I think we're going to have to accept that there is no straightforward answer to this and that we're going to have to settle on a solution that is acceptable to most people but recognize that it will inevitably fall short of perfection. My overriding thought is that we should recognize first and foremost that this is the English language Wiki. "Astronaut" is the generic term for the entire English-speaking world just as "cosmonaut" ("космонавт") is the generic term for the Russian-speaking world. These terms transcend any angency-specific usage, so in my view it makes the most sense to use "astronaut" for the infobox heading on the English Wiki and to then separately note each individual's rank or position according to the agency concerned (e.g. "pilot-cosmonaut", "space flight participant", etc.). Any other solution just devolves into a huge mess. -- Hux 06:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think there are two solutions:
  • Use only the astronaut term as a term established in English language for all those people.
  • Use both terms based on official qualification/rank of a person. So a person travelled in space of received special training could be cosmonaut, astronaut, or both, or neither, depending on their qualifications, official status and certificates. At least in Russia there are official terms (qualifications) "pilot-cosmonaut", "cosmonaut-tester" etc. But then we maybe should use not generic, but more specific term "pilot-cosmonaut" for example instead simply "cosmonaut" as any Russian encyclopedy does. But this approach requires additional research on every person.--Nixer 07:57, 24

September 2006 (UTC)

How do the above definitions impact someone like Mike Melville - he clearly isn't part of the NASA astronaut corps (or any other government agency like the US Air Force), but I also don't think that he'd be part of the "space tourist" category (after all, he was actively piloting his spacecraft - more than can be said for some earlier astronauts/cosmonauts)? ThreeBlindMice 08:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

He is commercial astronaut because he was awarded Commercial Astronaut Badge by Federal Aviation Administration. He also a test pilot.--Nixer 08:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• What about Joseph A. Walker, he wasn't in NASA? Philip Stevens 10:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

  This needs additional research, but as I said a person which had been in space not necessary has the title of astronaut. I suggest to mark as astronaut only those who awarded such title by a government agency, regardless whether the person ever been in space. And the number of such agencies is limited:

Agency	Titles awarded	Title preconditions
Gagarin CTC, RSC Energia, IMBP	Cosmonaut-Researcher, Cosmonaut-Tester, Instructor-Cosmonaut-Researcher, Instructor-Cosmonaut-Tester	Special training passed, member of a cosmonaut unit.
NASA	Astronaut	Special training passed, member of NASA astronaut corps
Federal Aviation Administration	Commercial Astronaut	A flight over 50 miles on a FAA-licensed vehicle
US Air Force	Astronaut	Awarded only to some X-15 program members, who performed flights over 50 miles
China National Space Administration	Astronaut	Special training passed, member of Chinese astronaut unit

There is no other agencies or space titles to date. A person may have a number of these titles if he employed or has a contract with different agencies. For example, Pavel Vinogradov listed in Roscosmos site as pilot-cosmonaut of Russian Federation, cosmonaut 3rd class.--Nixer 10:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the Chinese term is "Taikonaut". --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

No. "Taikonaut" is a fantasy of Western media. In official press-releases in English it is "Astronaut".--Nixer 13:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, in their press-releases in Russian Chinese officials call him cosmonaut .--Nixer 10:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What about the ESA - European Space Agency?. Why it is not included in the table?. ESA also calls the members of their corp as "Astronauts" . 130.194.5.129 21:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I like Nixer's proposal, but I'm still thinking about tweaking the way the field is used. We don't actually have a field for an astronautics agency or sponsor. Thus following the table we could have in the field now named "type":

• NASA Astronaut
• ESA Astronaut
• Russian Cosmonaut
• Chinese Astronaut
• Commercial astronaut
• Private/Commercial/Other <-- for space tourists

I don't think it's a good idea to overload the "type" field, which is a display font heading, with something complicated like a specific title, as that's what the "rank" field is for. (There are potential problems with that too, but one thing at a time.) I am strongly opposed to using non-English phrases like taikonaut or spationaute per Use English, and I am strongly opposed to using any neologisms like "afronaut". I'm thinking around agencies and formal certification because this is probably one way to avoid those problems down the road. --Dhartung | Talk 00:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes and I also want to point that currently there three cosmonaut units in Russia: one is in Gagarin CTC (Defence ministry), one is in RSC Energia and one is in Institute of Medical and Biological Problems. So we can put in table "RSC Energia Cosmonaut". Roscosmos currently has no cosmonaut unit (although it is planned to transfere Gagarin CTC unit from Defence ministry to Roscosmos). We should necessary indicate an agency/agencies to which a person belongs. Here you can find a list of active Russian cosmonauts by April, 2006 and to which unit they belong. --Nixer 01:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe the suggestions by users Nixer and Dhartung are valuable and their suggestions are crystal clear. In the first place, why I brought this matter of astronaut/cosmonaut in the Anousheh Ansari's discussion page was because I saw a lot of disparities among different Wikipedia pages. In a way, it was sad to see science getting mixed up with other matters.

In my view, as opposed to what user GW_Simulations mentions, the use of the word Astronaut has NOTHING to do with Americanism (I am neither an American, Russian nor British). I believe that common people will use the word Astronaut to identify a person who has travelled to space regardless of his/her nationality, which spaceship travelled, which space agency he/she is contracted to etc. But in order to be more specific (and in scientific literature) the proposed words could be used and it is very clear.

The use of some words in a language like English (a global language) is getting more and more trickier. English has been evolved into many varieties in countries like US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc. Hence, it is natural that some people will tend to prefer one usage over another. Germans call their country as Deutchland, where as in English we call it Germany. Also, it depends on who is more advanced than another especially with technology in a particular era. If a country invents a product that the world has never seen before, it/media will use some words to describe the product. Then the question is, whether those people have the right to give a new word or does an English language authority must give a word?. I do not know who invented the word Astronaut when/where it was first used, i.e., when Gargarin went to space or when Alan Shepard went to space etc. Media plays an important role in the world and also inventing new words. Hence, in the cold war period may be the words Astronaut and Cosmonaut were used to differentiate Americans and Russians. But all what matters is, both of the words describe a person who has travelled into space. In my view, however for some reason, the word cosmonaut is bound to Russian Space Activities. Was it derived and have origins from the word cosmos?

All of the men who have ventured into space have done tremendous research and has lift humanity as never before. I am very proud of them irrespective of their backgrounds. We must respect them rather than worrying about the use of a word. Hence, let every one get together and initiate this new name plan and make Wikipedia pages as consistent as possible. 130.194.5.129 02:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

A simple proposal - why not just leave the field out? Since we are already displaying the nationality of the spacefarer and since it could be argued that this field doesn't add much, if anything, to the info box, but does clearly cause problems for determining what should be used then it might be simpler to just not have it. Quite simply, does not identifying a particular spacefarer as an Astronaut or Cosmonaut or any other type of "onaut" reduce the usefulness of Wikipedia? ThreeBlindMice 06:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that would leave the infobox with no "title". We'd have to come up with one, and I think it's clear that it can't be astronaut, because of the country-specific (esp. Russian) objections. Something like space traveller or the sometimes-used space sailor would violate most-common-name rules. I could see space explorer (or spacefarer, maybe) working, though.

What I'm getting at, though, is avoiding having a fuzzy field. If we use agencies we avoid fuzziness. ;-) Also, this lets us specify e.g. nationality vs. agency, like Prince Sultan being a Saudi and a NASA Astronaut. And then we're populatinng the infobox with useful information. --Dhartung | Talk 12:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Some controvercy still exists because I recently found that Yang Liway called astronaut in releases in English, but in their press-releases in Russian Chinese officials call him "cosmonaut" . In Russian sources he also most frequently called cosmonaut.--Nixer 13:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be very difficult to satisfy every one. Again there are two words Astronomy and Cosmology. Also it is clear that there is no universal rule and people might have muddled the words astronaut and cosmonaut in different documents. All what matters seems to adopt a reasonable naming convention to be used in ENGLISH Wikipedia pages. In that regard using the agency + Astronaut/Cosmonaut avoids ambiguities or any prejudice (as some might worry about a person's nationality in the first place). In my view, the words, space explorer or spacefarer are not strictly scientific. But I might be wrong here. Also this problem might be wasting valuable time of the editors. Also, this time could be used to add more scientific material into the Wikipedia Space-Science pages. Anyway, it is better that Wikipedia pages are accurate and consistent and that science is relaxed as much as posible from other matters. 130.194.5.129 15:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

An anonymous IP user now trying to revert my edits in Yang Liwei article where he insists him to be called taikonaut.--Nixer 15:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

As users have mentioned on several accounts and grounds, the word taikonaut is NOT a main stream ENGLISH word. 130.194.5.129 16:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• There are three space faring nations (i.e. three nation who have sent humans and not just metal into space) and there is a separate term for which nation a person was sent into space by; Astronaut if you lifted off from Florida, Cosmonaut if you lifted off from Baikonur and Taikonaut if you lifted off from Beijing. Am I wrong? This is what's suggested by the opening of Astronaut. Philip Stevens 16:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

  Yes, you're wrong. Americans who lift off from Baikonur are usally called "astronauts" (try a Google search for the exact phrases "astronaut Norman Thagard" and "cosmonaut Norman Thagard"; "astronaut" wins 11,400 to 2.) 68.163.35.42 03:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

  I do not know whether it exist in English, but it definitely does not exist in Chinese and it is not an official term anyway. It we label persons according the agency which employed them (and as such, their official qualification/status), then we should accept that Russian cosmonaut flying in Shuttle, slill is Russian cosmonaut, and a NASA astronaut launched in Soyuz still astronaut NASA. There is still uncertainity with members of other countries' space programs, especially those which do not use a word related to cosmonaut or astronaut. In fact though, we can use the term from official press-release from those countries.--Nixer 18:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it would be nice to have a clear definition of when someone is an Astronaut vs. Cosmonaut, etc. However, since the above discussion shows that this is not to be I come back to my suggestion of just dropping that field. I understand the comment made by Dhartung above that this would leave the infobox without a title, but is that so bad? I mean, what is worst from a Wikipedia users perspective - not having a title for an infobox (when it is quite clear what the purpose of the infobox is) or having a title that gives the appearance of being authoritative but actually isn't?

If a title has to exists then I must admit that I'm mainly in agreement with Nixer's comment above. Basically, for any country that has a manned space program (USA, Russia and China so far) any citizen that goes into space (as defined by FAI rules), irrespective of where they launch from would be called by that country's term. A citizen of any other country would be defined by which manned space program they first flew into space on (i.e. a French spacefarer who first flew into space on a Russian mission would be a Cosmonaut, even if subsequent flights where on the Shuttle, while a French spacefarer who first went into space on the Shuttle would be an Astronaut, irrespective of any further flights that might include Russian launches). Thus, any American who has been to space would always be an Astronaut, any Russian (including any members of the Soviet Union prior to its break-up) would always be a Cosmonaut (I don't know enough to enter the above discussion regarding Taikonauts) and any other national would be dependent on the nationality of the space program that first put them into space. Having said all that, I still think it might be easier to just drop the "title" field altogether. ThreeBlindMice 18:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not think the first flight is so important. The persons from other countries should be called as their titles officially translated in press-releases in English, I think. Thus both French and Chenese should be called astronauts.--Nixer 22:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

ThreeBlindMice, that is roughly "usage" in the space community, or at least the boards and USENET forums I have frequented, but it fails WP:V badly, so I no longer see it as a viable approach. Honestly, after living through the above (oh! the travail! kidding ...) I am ready to fall back on Use English and just use "astronaut" all around. (Really, because it's the common English word, no matter that it is also a NASA rank and they won't use it for space tourists.) That would fail common usage in the case of the Russians, though, because Western media still commonly uses "cosmonaut", and of course the neologism problem ("taikonaut", "afronaut") which is only going to get worse as more countries send people to space (including private tourists on private vehicles). This is why I proposed falling back on a verifiable, citeable alternative which is the agency and title. As for the Infobox, it's plenty useful to have some sort of title, but I'm not insisting that it has to be astronaut. It may be simpler to use my agency/title combination as the title, though. *sigh* --Dhartung | Talk 05:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

But it is factually incorrect to label them all "Astronaut". It almost constitutes {{verror}} --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 18:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Dhartung - I agree that it would be useful to have a title for the infobox, but given the problems we are having with determining what the "correct" title for any particular instance of the infobox should be I believe that it might be better (okay, easier) to remove it. In particular since the template at the moment indicates that it should be updated as long as it isn't using the title field, which means that I expect a number of people to try and deal with this issue (I have held off from taking care of this expressly because of the discussion we are having here) and we could easily end up with information that we would consider to be incorrect (which leads straight into the verifiablity argument you made above and the incorrect information issue raised by GW_Simulations). I have no issue with your agency/title suggestions other than that the resulting "title" could easily be quite long (i.e. I guess Mike Melville would be something like "Scaled Composites - Commercial Astronaut"). Also, what about the case of Abdul Ahad Mohmand - I don't know if Afghanistan had a Space Agency at the time of this selection/training/flight. If so, I don't know what the name would be so I couldn't add it to the title. If not, does that mean that we would consider him to be a member of the Soviet space agency (I assume he would NOT be a member of the Russian space agency since that didn't exist back then). Given that he flew on a Soviet mission I accept that we could use the Soviet title in use at that time. What about Franz Viehböck - according to his web site and the ASTROMIR web site he is a cosmonaut. However, there exists an Austrian Space Agency (which, according to its Wikipedia entry became part of ESA prior to Viehböck's flight) so does that mean we should use ESA as the agency but use the Soviet rank? What about Jean-Loup Chrétien - based on his Wikipedia entry I'd say that the agency would be CNES (since he was active prior to 2001 when all astronauts were transferred to ESA) but having flown both on Soviet and NASA missions would he have both Soviet and NASA ranks? If yes, that would make for a really long "title", if not, which would be used? I realize that I have more questions than answers, but I only raise them in the hope that we can arrive at an approach that is a) correct and b) workable. ThreeBlindMice 20:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Previous Occupation

This section of the template makes sense for career astronauts/cosmonauts, etc., but is misleading when the person concerned is a space tourist since it wrongly implies they have finished with whatever job they were doing previously. However, I'm not sure how to resolve this problem other than by removing the field entirely. Any ideas? -- Hux 15:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

"Other Occupations"? --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Have amended "Previous occupation" to "Occupation*" with "* previous or current" as footnote if {{{occupation|}}} instantiated. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 15:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you support this pattern?

See these articles: Joseph Henry Engle, Michael James Adams, Mike Melvill, Ulf Merbold, Phạm Tuân, Mamoru Mohri, Chiaki Mukai, Yang Liwei--Nixer 05:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks alright. Could you possibly do ones for Michael Lopez-Alegria and Edward Fincke so I can see how these would be handled. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 11:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No trouble.--Nixer 13:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't Fincke technically a Cosmonaut? --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Did you read the above discussion?--Nixer 14:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Works for me - I'll let you know if I come across anyone I have a problem categorizing using this scheme. ThreeBlindMice 19:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, would two more demonstrations be possible please. Could you do Helen Sharman, and state what you'd do for Marcos Pontes (if you change the latter you'll probably get reverted and accused of vandalising the page.) --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 19:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Helen Sherman officially was a Research Cosmonaut and had a contract with Juno space program consortium (which was also the name of British-Soviet joint mission). Marcos Pontes was a BSA astronaut.--Nixer 21:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Agency names

Having the Mike Melvill infobox titled FAA Commercial Astronaut implies to me that he flew for or was charted by the FAA as an astronaut. While the FAA awarded him Commercial Astronaut wings, he is a Commercial Astronaut for / employee of Scaled Composites, not the FAA. This creates another problem though, what will we do for commercial astronauts who fly for multiple companies? Rillian 20:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

So are we including agency names in the type field or not? I see some with NASA Astronaut and some without, some with CNES Astronaut and some without. If we do include the agency name, what do we do with people who were part of programs sponsored by multiple agencies? List all, list the the last, list the "primary" one? Rillian 14:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Rank

The Rank field is being used inconsistently. Most often, it is used for a person's military rank, if they have one. Other times it is used for the person's rank as an astronaut, e.g. Cosmonaut Researcher. And sometimes it is used for a crew position title, e.g. Mission Specialist. Not sure what we should do here other than to raise the question as to why a military rank is relevant to an Astronaut Infobox. And which rank would we use, the rank they held while an astronaut or the highest rank achieved? Rillian 14:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• I think the rank field should remain empty if the astronaut isn't/wasn't in the military. --Philip Stevens 14:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Add status pleasse

{{editprotected}}

Add the status on the infobox.

Possible words on status: Active, Retired, Dead, Unknown Jer10 95 Talk 05:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• Unprotected per your request on WP:RFP. If vandalism starts up, re-request and it can be semi/full protected again. Good luck :) - Alison^☺ 06:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I edited "Deceased" to "Dead" per WP:EUPHEMISM. We should avoid euphemisms like "deceased" and "passed away". --John (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I would discourage using this extra field to indicate status is "dead"... You can see automatically in the first line of the article, by the date of death and the use of past tense (as well as in the age field in the infobox) if the subject is alive or dead. I don't know of any person infoboxes that need an additional field to say someone is dead. —Мандичка^YO 😜 15:10, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, User:Wikimandia is correct and there is certainly no benefit in adding that a dead person, whose date of death is right there, is also "deceased". --John (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Add amateur radio call?

Being that most astronauts and comonauts earn an amateur raidio license before visiting the space station, so they can use the HAM gear onboard, how about adding HAM callsign information to the template? The callsigns are easy to find being that ARRL usually publishes whenever an astronaut earns a call sign. --StuffOfInterest 16:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Heck, how about adding their NASA communications call sign, e.g. "Beamer" for Robert Curbeam or "JR" for James F. Reilly? (sdsds - talk) 23:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Worlds visited

At what point should the template be updated with parameters for worlds visited (orbital) and worlds visited (surface)? Admittedly, at present only 12 people have a non-zero value for worlds visited (surface), but hopefully that list will increase. --A More Perfect Onion (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 January 2013

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please link "EVA" in the infobox as most people would not know what it means...

Change

| label14 = Total EVAs

to

| label14 = Total [[Extra-vehicular activity|EVA]]s

Thank you 50.100.156.249 (talk) 23:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Done HueSatLum 23:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Spouse parameter needed

There should be a field for spouse. Not all astronauts are single.--Auric talk 13:33, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree... I would like to add this two to Neil Armstrong:

| spouse        = 

Janet Shearon

​

​

(m. 1956; div. 1994)​

Carol Held Knight

​

(m. 1994)​

| religion      =  Deism

--P2prules (talk) 02:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

RfC on Template:Infobox person

This message is to notify you that there is an RfC ongoing on whether to add pronunciation info to {{Infobox person}}, which this infobox transcludes. Your comments on the matter are appreciated. The discussion can be found here. Thanks! 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 17:12, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Additional fields

Looking for some input before I make an edit that affects many articles.

In all of the astronaut articles I have looked at, there is an awkward section at the bottom that gives the physical characteristics of the astronaut.

What do you all think of adding those physical characteristics to the infobox? We could do it like other large infoboxes do and have it be a separate section (or whatever it is called). Pretty indifferent to the implementation.

Another option would be to remove the information from the article entirely, but I hesitate to remove that information. It is a bit trivia like to me.

Either way I was looking for some input.

Another set of fields I would be interesting in adding are flight hours and jet hours. I am editing Apollo era astronaut articles right now, and it is usually just awkwardly placed in the article somewhere. Since it is just a number, I think it would make sense to have it in the infobox.

Let me know your thoughts, thanks! Kees08 (talk) 19:31, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Kees, I'm deeply confused. I just randomly clicked on well over a dozen articles in the American astronauts category and didn't see anything like what you described. Such statistics should be trimmed out of any articles you find them in, unless for some reason they form a defining characteristic of their notability. As for flight hours and jet hours, I don't see why this is relevant for "Infobox astronaut"...the "time in space" parameter certainly is, but they are known for being astronauts, not necessarily pilots. The body of the article is fine for the other aspects of their careers that the individual is not specifically known for. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Following up two years later...I have deleted most of the physical attributes sections; I remember elsewhere someone saying they did not like them as well. Kees08 (Talk) 22:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Embed support

Can you please add support so we can add this as a child to the infobox person template. ? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:02, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

why not read the documentation? Frietjes (talk) 23:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I have, and formally withdraw my request. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 09:12, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 March 2018

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please change per {{Infobox person}}.

• <span class="honorific-suffix" style="font-size: small">

To this:

• <span class="honorific-suffix" style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal">

  78.19.65.80 (talk) 21:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:01, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Signature parameter

I was about to add Neil Armstrong's signature to the infobox, only to see that it is not a supported parameter. Other infoboxes, such as Template:Infobox officeholder used in John Glenn's article, have that parameter. Thoughts on adding it to this? Anyone savvy enough to implement it? Kees08 (Talk) 21:43, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Astronauts are not really known for signatures. Regarding the implementation you could probably just copy and paste from an infobox that does allow it. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:44, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Some astronauts are specifically known for lack of signatures (Neil Armstrong in general; Michael Collins refusing to sign his artwork for years). Other astronauts specifically sit in signing sessions to generate income. I thought the addition of the signatures would be a positive addition because of that, but if we do not want to do it I will not force the issue. Kees08 (Talk) 21:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I have added some code, could you give it a try please? --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:24, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Works fine, I think it looks fine; you can check out the Neil Armstrong article and see what you think. Thanks! Kees08 (Talk) 22:29, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for trying it out. All  Done here then. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Selection

Currently the instructions for |selection= say, Date when person selected to train as an astronaut.

However, across hundreds of pages, that’s not the format that has come into use.

I would like to propose that we change the instructions to more closely match the format that has been established: Training group(s) the astronaut was selected for, including year.

I would also propose we include a list of appropriate examples, such as:

• NASA Group NN (YEAR)
• YEAR AGENCY Group
• YEAR Cosmonaut Group
• TYPE Cosmonaut Group (YEAR)

Any thoughts? -- RickyCourtney (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)