Canadian astronauts could take commercial flight to space station

[grr]

There is 3 options for the CSA's future astronauts (that will be flying after 2012):
1- Obtain a commercial flight in 2019 through a barter agreement with the U.S.: this is the preferred option per the article that I linked above.
2- Pay for a commercial flight with cash. This option would only be available if commercial crew is cheap enough (e.g. $20 million).
3- Pay the Russians $63 million for a flight with cash: this option has been ruled out as being too expensive in the article that I linked above.

Why not 2 or even all of them?
I suspect that if commercial flight happens, then CSA will be happy to pay to send more esp. if it is cheap enough.

[dcporter]

Great. The more people we put into space, the better off we'll be. What are we going to call Canadian space travelers? Maplenauts?

Nauts, eh?

[93143]

They're already called astronauts, and have been since Marc Garneau in 1984.  This is unlikely to change even if Canada gets a domestic human launch capability (which is pretty far off, though a domestic microsatellite launch capability is/was being considered).

Astronaut seems to be English for "space traveller", not just "American space traveller".  Cosmonaut means "Russian astronaut", being an anglicization of космонавт, and Taikonaut means "Chinese astronaut", being an invented term not directly based on 航天员 or 宇航员, or for that matter 太空人.  [Isn't Wikipedia great?]

[Garrett]

Well, seeing as Canada is bilingual (French/English) then another name for a Canadian astronaut, particularly one from Quebec, could be "spationaut", which is what the French sometimes use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_spationauts).

Though in practice, the French tend to use the word "cosmonaut" quite often in everyday language.

[yg1968]

Well, seeing as Canada is bilingual (French/English) then another name for a Canadian astronaut, particularly one from Quebec, could be "spationaut", which is what the French sometimes use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_spationauts).

Though in practice, the French tend to use the word "cosmonaut" quite often in everyday language.

They are called "astronautes" in French in Canada. The word "spationaute" or "cosmonaute" is not used in Quebec for Canadian astronauts.

[yg1968]

There is 3 options for the CSA's future astronauts (that will be flying after 2012):
1- Obtain a commercial flight in 2019 through a barter agreement with the U.S.: this is the preferred option per the article that I linked above.
2- Pay for a commercial flight with cash. This option would only be available if commercial crew is cheap enough (e.g. $20 million).
3- Pay the Russians $63 million for a flight with cash: this option has been ruled out as being too expensive in the article that I linked above.

Why not 2 or even all of them?
I suspect that if commercial flight happens, then CSA will be happy to pay to send more esp. if it is cheap enough.

The CSA budget is about $300 million per year. $63 million is too expensive for their budget. Canada prefers to pay for commercial crew through barter since it creates Canadian jobs.

[dcporter]

Canada prefers to pay for commercial crew through barter since it creates Canadian jobs.

And awesome space robots.

[Garrett]

Well, seeing as Canada is bilingual (French/English) then another name for a Canadian astronaut, particularly one from Quebec, could be "spationaut", which is what the French sometimes use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_spationauts).

Though in practice, the French tend to use the word "cosmonaut" quite often in everyday language.

They are called "astronautes" in French in Canada. The word "spationaute" or "cosmonaute" is not used in Quebec for Canadian astronauts.

Thanks for the clarification. I never liked the word "spationaute". Sometimes I think Canadian French is better grounded in common sense.

[go4mars]

What are we going to call Canadian space travelers?

They'll still be called hockey-nuts.

[stockman]

What are we going to call Canadian space travelers?

They'll still be called hockey-nuts.

that would be hockeynauts...  

[dcporter]

If a Canadian launch needs to turn to a polar orbit after launching to at a lower inclination, it does a hockey stick maneuver.