🪐 Space and stars 🔭 Space travel and observatories
Astronauts
📖 In short
An astronaut is a person who travels to space, flying spacecraft, living in the space station and doing science experiments. In Russia they're called “cosmonauts”. Arab astronauts have been to space too!
🤩 Did you know?
- In some programs an astronaut must be between about 1.63 and 1.93 meters tall.
- Astronauts need years of training before a trip.
- Yuri Gagarin was the first person to travel to space, in 1961.
- Astronauts on the space station see the sun rise and set about 16 times a day!
🔎 Find out more
🌟 Tough training
Astronauts train for many years, studying science and engineering, learning to fly planes, training underwater to get used to floating, and learning to live in a small space with their crewmates.
🔍 Life without weight
In the space station everything floats! Astronauts sleep in bags tied to the wall, drink water from pouches with straws, and exercise every day so their muscles and bones don't get weak.
💡 The spacesuit
When an astronaut goes outside the spacecraft, they wear a special heavy suit that gives them oxygen and protects them from extreme cold and heat and the Sun's rays.
🎯 Arab astronauts
Arab astronauts have been to space, including the Saudi prince Sultan bin Salman in 1985, the Emiratis Hazza al-Mansouri and Sultan al-Neyadi, and the Saudi Rayyanah Barnawi, who became the first Arab woman astronaut.
📸 More pictures
🧩 Test yourself
1 What happens to things in the space station?
2 Who is the first Arab woman astronaut?
3 Astronauts on the space station see the sun rise and set about ?? times a day!
4 Which picture shows “Astronauts”?
