astronaut

Everyday

A person trained to travel and work in space, in a spacecraft or on a space station. tree →

In the lessons

In science, astronauts go into space in rockets; on the International Space Station they float because they are in free fall around the Earth (often called weightlessness). They wear spacesuits outside because there is no air to breathe in space. The first people on the Moon were the American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Russian astronauts are called cosmonauts. Phrases: "astronaut training", "become an astronaut", "spacewalk", "space station".

Examples

• The astronaut floated inside the space station. tree →
• Astronauts wear spacesuits when they go outside. tree →
• Neil Armstrong was the first astronaut to walk on the Moon. tree →
• I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. tree →
• Astronauts train for years before they fly. tree →
• The astronauts ate dried food from packets. tree →
• From space, the astronaut could see the whole of Australia. tree →
• Six astronauts live on the space station at a time. tree →

Note

Use "an": an astronaut. Spelling: astro + naut (Greek for "star sailor"). Myth: astronauts do not float because there is "no gravity"; gravity is still strong there, but they are falling around the Earth all the time. Russian: cosmonaut; Chinese: taikonaut.