In view of all the publicity surrounding the Mir, space programs, etc. I have a question.
Russian word cosmonaut (kosmonavt) has a greek root kosmos. In russian kosmos means "space" - meaning anything outside Earth athmosphere. Literally cosmonaut means space-traveller or spaceman - guy who gets into space outside the athmosphere. Which is exactly what they do from the very first one.
Americans chose to name their guys astronaut from greek aster which means star.
It is pretty obvious now and was in the 60s that those guys would not travel to any stars in the forseable future (say, few thousand years) unless we care to call the Moon a star. That would be quite a stretch. They do get out to space, just like russian guys do.
With no disrespect to our brave and competent spacemen, who came up with such a stupid and improper term for them? Or rather who lifted it from science fiction and appied it to those guys?
miko
