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Data

Cumulative number of people who have been to space

See all data and research on:
Space Exploration & Satellites

What you should know about this indicator

  • The definition of astronaut is not universally agreed upon among space launch providers. This data includes all individuals who have flown to outer space.
  • Outer space is defined here as an altitude of 100 kilometers or higher, following the World Air Sports Federation (FAI) definition, an international standard for aeronautics and astronautics records.
  • The data includes astronauts who died during space-bound missions, such as those aboard STS-51-L.
  • This data does not include individuals who flew below 100 kilometers or first-time astronauts who died in non-space-bound missions without having previously been to space.
  • For individuals who went to space multiple times, only the first visit is counted. Country-level data is assigned according to the individual's nationality.
Source
CSIS Aerospace Security Project (2022) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 4, 2025
Next expected update
March 2026
Date range
1961–2021
Unit
people

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

This dataset includes all astronauts who have flown to an altitude of 100 kilometers or higher. This particular definition of "outer space" is used by the World Air Sports Federation (FAI), an international record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. This database also includes those who were killed in a space-bound mission. It does not include, however, those who have flown to altitudes below 100 kilometers or first-time astronauts who were killed in non-space-bound missions without having previously flown to space.

Some astronauts flew to space and returned to Earth on two different spacecraft. In those cases, only the ascent vehicle is included.

Retrieved on
March 4, 2025
Retrieved from
https://aerospace.csis.org/data/international-astronaut-database/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Aerospace Security Project - International Astronaut Database (2022).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
  • We have mapped values for Czechoslovakia to Slovakia (there was no entry for Czechia in the data), East Germany to Germany (there was no entry for West Germany), and USSR to Russia (Russia accounts for over 95% of entries in the data among all other USSR successors).

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Cumulative number of people who have been to space”, part of the following publication: Edouard Mathieu, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2022) - “Space Exploration and Satellites”. Data adapted from CSIS Aerospace Security Project. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-people-space [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

CSIS Aerospace Security Project (2022) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

CSIS Aerospace Security Project (2022) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Cumulative number of people who have been to space” [dataset]. CSIS Aerospace Security Project, “International Astronaut Database” [original data]. Retrieved March 10, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-people-space